South Kelsey Trail

South Kelsey Trail,
Siskiyou Wilderness,
August 3-5
Trailhead: South Kelsey, off Hwy 199
Mileage: 32-ish
Trip Rating: Moderate

Maps: "A Guide to the Siskiyou Wilderness," USDA; "Six Rivers National Forest," USDA; "Recreation Map California's North Coast," Earthwalk Press

Books: "Pacific Coast Tree Finder" by Tom Watts; "Sibley Field Guide to North American Birds" by David Allen Sibley; "Conifer Country" by Michael Edward Kauffmann

Links: Smith River Alliance;  Tom Stienstra; SummitPost.org

Free campfire permits (required) available at the Gasquet ranger station; no wilderness permit or bear cans necessary. You could also try the Jed Smith visitor station. Just don't look for a lot of back-country advice at either place.

Let me just say, Wow, it's about time I got back to the wilderness and into a tent. And this was an easy one: an out-and-back off Hwy 199 along a historic trail from California's mining days. This section of the South Kelsey Trail combines a short drive to the trailhead with a (mostly) clear and marked trail, and plenty of shade and river access. The route is not always clear, however, so you'll need to be comfortable way-finding, and for some the mileage is on the high side for what was essentially a two-day trip, which is why I'm calling it Moderate.

From Eureka, it's approximately 2 1/2 hrs to the South Kelsey trailhead, almost all of the way paved and 100-percent of it well-maintained. If we could drive it in the vocho, your passenger car will do just fine—though you're likely to hit snow and mud in the winter and spring months, so be prepared.

Take Hwy 101 to Hwy 199. A bit past the town of Hiouchi take the right-hand turn onto South Fork Rd (aka county road 427 or forest service road 15N01). You'll cross the Smith River, then come to a T intersection—go LEFT. (A right-hand turn will take you to Douglas Park and the Stout Grove trailhead in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.)

Continue on this beautifully-paved road past the turn to Big Flat Campground; now you're on the Gasquet-Orleans road, aka the GO road, or county road 15. A couple of miles down the road you'll see the signed turn for the South Kelsey trailhead. You'll go downhill on gravel for about 3 miles and dead-end at the parking area for the trailhead: a park service pit toilet, a picnic table or two, and room for 8-10 cars. One trail (also signed) leads off from the parking area.

(A note about mileages. The vocho's odometer doesn't work, so I can't provide mileages. But the maps, Google, and the links listed above list them. I just haven't verified them but they seem accurate, for what that's worth.)

(Also, I still don't have a camera, but I've included some photos/photo credits from other sources to give you an idea of what's in store.)

Shortly after leaving the trailhead you'll cross another trail, the McClendon Ford Trail. Going left on it will take you down to the South Fork of the Smith River; going right...back to the trailhead? Not sure. So keep on going. You'll see the beautiful waters of the Smith River below you, but don't fret—you'll see them soon enough.

Smith River, seen from the South Kelsey trail. Photo from Freshet, the Smith River Alliance blog & guide

Even in August, walking the South Kelsey is shady business; only a few stretches bring you out from under the trees. Doug fir, redwoods, ferns, some stretches of madrone and manzanita and what looked like chinquapin on the drier stretches. Some accounts call this trail dry, but again, even in August you've got the river, numerous creeks, and freshets running down the mountainside...we were not worried about running dry.

Buck Creek is your first opportunity for camping, and you'll be right on the river if you want a dip. You'll know you're at Buck Creek, too, because there's a shelter there, and that was the only place we saw other people on this hike—4 guys fishing, drinking PBR, and working on their sunburns. Could be nice if you have the place to yourself, but watch out for lots of ground flags marking impromptu bathrooms.

Your next throw-down opportunity will be at Elkhorn Bar. The sign you've made it there is the signed turnoff for the Summit Valley Trail, by the looks of it less maintained than the South Kelsey, with a terminus on the GO road past where you turned off for this hike.

But if you can, go the extra mile past Elkhorn to get to Eightmile Creek before throwing down your Therm-a-rest. A short detour trail heading off to your left takes you to an excellent small-group camping site with access to a sandy bar jutting out between the confluence of the creek with the river. Just lovely. We saw a river otter in Eightmile Creek, and a dipper foraging in the water along the shore. There's a fire ring, and likely plenty of wood carried to the campsite by the higher waters of spring.

Eightmile Creek was so enchanting we changed our plans and camped there for the night, making Friday a short day. We changed Saturday's plans to stay the night again at Eightmile instead of elsewhere on the trail. Made for a long Saturday, but a short Sunday, so what the heck.

 Eightmile Creek. Photo from Freshet, the Smith River Alliance blog & guide

This would be a good time to mention the trail conditions. Ninety percent of the section of the South Kelsey trail we hiked was wide and clear. The other ten percent made us stop, look, backtrack, try again, backtrack some more, then finally find the trail. We also saw mileage signs moved miles from their original, intended locations. So: ignore any mileage signs you see. But the Kelsey Trail signs we saw were accurate and helpful, and where the trail was in doubt, look for pink tape flags—especially at creek crossings.

So it may take you a bit to cross Eightmile Creek, and once you do, go LEFT on the trail, not right. Your next landmark is Gunbarrel campsite, slide, and trail...none of which we saw! We knew we must be at Gunbarrel because of the flatness and the time elapsed.

From Gunbarrel you'll start to climb up the ridge to Baldy Peak. Maybe it was bald at one time; it's pretty forested now. And we didn't see the water tank, the side trail to the top of the peak; I don't remember if we saw the side trail to Bear Wallows. When we reached the flats on the other side of Baldy Peak, we lost the trail again and spent oh, 30, 45 minutes picking it up again. Good camping spots, and probably river access though at that point we were more interested in the trail than the water. We found the trail again, crossed a creek, lost it, found the pink flag markers, and started up.
 The trail was narrow, rough, and an obvious re-route, but soon we hit the ol' Kelsey. We got a glimpse of the Harrington Lake outflow into Harrington Creek and continued up, looking for a spur trail to the lake itself. We never found it. Looking at the maps in my living room, it looks like we missed a creek crossing somewhere and came up the northeast bank of Harrington Creek and not the southwest side as shown. Oh, well. When we got to the point along the trail where we could see the cliffs ringing Harrington Lake (and another relocated mileage sign), we took a snack break then headed back to Eightmile Creek for a wonderfully refreshing dip and huge portions of instant mashed potatoes, pouch tuna, and airline mini-bottles of liquor.

Sunday dawned with thunderstorms, so we packed up and headed out in record time; not much exploring on the way back! We never stopped in a She-she's, which holds an eerie fascination for me, but just went right to the Starbuck's in Crescent City cloaked in our grime and stink. While waiting for the bathroom we did stumble across "Hiking America's Wild Rivers Coast" pamplet hiding under the rack of Crescent City papers, a publication of Explore Del Norte. Pick one up—they list some very nice hikes through the redwoods and beaches of between 1.2 miles and just under 10.

So, if a 32-mile out-and-back doesn't float your boat, and you wanted to make this an easy trip, just hike out to Eightmile Creek, relax, then hike back. That's only 7 or so miles in, all on good trail.

If you wanted to make it strenuous, you could try making a loop by continuing from Harrington Mountain south on the 4E50 Boundary Trail to Sawtooth Mountain and the Elk Hole Botanical Area, then back to the Kelsey on an unnamed (on my map) trail going from Sawtooth Mtn to Gunbarrel. That could be good times.

Or, and this would be deluxe, you start from the South Kelsey trailhead, and a friend starts from the Elbow Springs trailhead off Hwy 96, and you drive her car back and she drives yours back. Or No Mans, or Clear Creek to Doe Flat.