Today was our Trinity Alps day. We were super excited about it because all of the photos online looked amazing — white capped granite mountains towering over beautiful lakes. Articles called it a “little slice of Yosemite.” But…. Researching the area and deciding on a hike was difficult. We kept running into differing options and opinions. We’d find a hike that looked okay but then reviews on All Trails would say it was impossible — or double the length to what we had read elsewhere. Eventually we read that stopping at the Weaverville Ranger Station on our way up into the alpine wilderness was the way to go, so we headed out.
The drive to Weaverville took about an hour and when we pulled in to the street parking in front of the Ranger Station, it was empty. A sign on the door said they were out to lunch from 10:30am – 1:45pm. What the heck??? We grabbed some paper brochures on hikes and headed across the street to the library thinking surely someone there could help us… but nope, they were also closed. We sat in the car reading descriptions of hikes and decided to head to the Boulder Lakes trail because it was said to be a “perfect introduction to hiking.” Spoiler alert: that brochure was a liar.
We drove 8 miles in the wrong direction before realizing that the directions to the trailhead started from a different town called Trinity Center. Which honestly I knew we needed to go there but we got so frazzled with the Ranger Center being closed that I forgot. So we drove * another * hour down the road to Trinity, then followed the directions to the trailhead.
We quickly found ourselves on a gravel road going first three miles, then turning right and going another 6.8 miles. There was no cell signal, so all we had was our paper map and odometer. We tracked the miles and crawled up the bumpy road at a slow pace. The road was one lane with a VERY steep drop off at times. We had gorgeous views of Mount Shasta and joked that this was likely the best view of the day. And in hindsight, we were right! There were a few times we legitimately worried whether our little rental car could make it over certain spots and at one point Kaia got out to scout the road ahead and help me roll over parts without bottoming out. It was honestly a nightmare and we never should have ventured up this road. We just reached a certain point that turning around would have been so dangerous that we sort of needed to keep going.
When we finally made it to the top there were several cars in the parking lot — a good sign! We both really really had to use the bathroom and were holding out hope that the words “parking lot” on our paper map meant some facilities, but nope! Kaia went to one side of the lot and I went to the other and we did our business. This did not offer the level of ‘coverage’ I would have preferred, but at that point we had zero options. I found a solid tree branch for balance and peed out in the open. We gathered our packs with snacks and water and headed on the trail.
The first part was supposed to be following a wide jeep trail. It was grassy but wide enough that we felt pretty comfortable. The signs warning about bears were mainly talking about overnight camping, but after walking a few hundred feet we both really started to feel uneasy. We were definitely in an area that did not see many people and we were all alone. The hike was supposed to only be about 1.7 miles one way to the lake, so not too far. We blasted Taylor Swift’s 1989 album on high volume to scare away any bears and be-bopped our way down the road. At some point the jeep trail was supposed to ‘narrow’ into a more traditional hiking trail and then around 1.3 miles there would be a fork in the trail, each side leading to a different lake about the same distance away.
Unfortunately for us, the jeep road simply ended at a dead end. No trail forward. We both looked. The only thing we could do at that point was turn around and walk back to the car. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating to have driven soooooo far and navigated that crappy road only to walk about a half mile and turn around. The alps weren’t even pretty — Lassen was much much prettier. It was all around a bust.
On the way home we stopped at a KOA to ask if they and any suggestions to salvage our day but they really didn’t. We did see a lake pull off on the trip home, so we parked and took a quick dip to sort of reset our day and at least feel like we accomplished something exciting. It felt soooo nice to float in water after getting hot and frustrated earlier. We then drove to Redding (super cute!) and stopped at Walmart, got more gas, and found a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. We’re all packed up for tomorrow now and going to try to leave at 7am so that our day tomorrow is better!!
