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Cache Creek Natural Area, November 11 & 12, 2022

Cache Creek Natural Area, November 11 & 12, 2022

Cache Creek Wilderness. 12 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Looking south and down into Cache Creek Wilderness from Cache Creek Ridge Trail, November 12, 2022. Cache Creek at the bottom. Photo by Don Burk.

Bureau of Land Management’s Cache Creek Natural Area lies halfway between Williams and Clearlake. It consists of over 70,000 acres of conserved land, which includes the 27,000-acre Cache Creek Wilderness. Adjacent lands, managed by various agencies, add another several thousand acres of protected lands, all of which are open to the public.

We spent a couple of lovely autumn days checking out two trails in the greater Cache Creek Natural Area: Lynch Canyon Trail and Cache Creek Ridge Trail. Overall, the area is quite reminiscent of Sacramento River Bend Recreation Area in Tehama County, only hillier and a bit more botanically diverse.

Driving west out of Williams on Highway 20, Lynch Canyon Trailhead is the first trailhead one comes to in the natural area, about 20 miles out of Williams. It’s not much of a trailhead. Despite the underwhelming introduction, off we went for what turned out to be a very enjoyable ~7-mile hike.

Lynch Canyon Trailhead. 11 Nov 2022. D. Burk.
Lynch Canyon Trailhead, Cache Creek Natural Area, is right off the south side of Highway 20. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a mess. Although there is ample parking, there are no toilets, lots of trash is strewn about, and the signage has deteriorated to such an extent that is provides no useful information. But don’t let that deter you—a very pleasant hike awaits! Photo taken November 11, 2022, by Don Burk.
Lynch Canyon Trail. 11 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Lynch Canyon Trail, Cache Creek Natural Area, not far from the trailhead. This first part of the trail goes gently down through rolling oak woodlands for over a mile before flattening out into open grasslands. Photo taken November 11, 2022, by Don Burk.

The first ~1.3 miles follow an old roadbed that goes through wooded hills and open grasslands down to a trail junction at some dilapidated structures on the bank of a tributary to Bear Creek. One of the structures is said to be an old hunting hut, dubbed Roadkill Cafe, that offered an eclectic menu of roadkill ala mode. Another structure seems to be where land managers stowed materials for restoration. None of this is in good shape, but seems to be a bit of a destination with locals. It was just about the only place we saw people; there were at least a dozen people there and at the creek, including kids and dogs.

Lynch Canyon Trail grasslands. 11 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Lynch Canyon Trail flattens out into open grasslands, which are bordered at the south by a tributary to Bear Creek. This is where the derelict structures are located (not shown). There was an incredible amount of deer/elk scat in this area. The rare tule elk, Cervus canadensis nannodes, is known to live in the vicinity. Photo taken November 11, 2022, by Don Burk.

From here we took a trail that followed the tributary downstream. (Probably a continuation of Lynch Canyon Trail. Well-marked maps are few and far between!) Moderately maintained, this section of the trail was sometimes washed out so that we had to hike in the dry creekbed, but it was easy to find the other end of the washed-out sections. Here the plant diversity was noticeably greater. We did not expect to find too much in bloom in the fall, but still counted seven species flowering, including coyotebrush and lessingia.

Trail along Bear Creek tributary. 11 Nov 22. D. Burk.
A trail, perhaps a continuation of Lynch Canyon Trail, follows the tributary to Bear Creek, dry at this time of the year. The presence of serpentine soils is evidenced by the greenish hue on the exposed hillside. The beautiful red stems crawling up the hill on the left are naked buckwheat, some still in flower. Cache Creek Natural Area, November 11, 2022. Photo by Don Burk.

We eventually came to another trail called Thompson Canyon Trail (but hand-signed as Buck’s Trail), which led steeply up, out of the canyon onto the ridgetop. This trail appeared to be machine made. It went straight up the hillside, without consideration for grade. (We did notice that the soils in this area are highly erosive, and the steep sections of this trail as well as the old-road trail were indeed deeply eroded in several places, which is not good for the environment.) Thompson Canyon Trail looped back to join up again with Lynch Canyon Trail near the old structures, traversing mostly wooded ridgetop that afforded occasional views of surrounding hills and valleys.

Thompson canyon Trail. 11 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Views from Thompson Canyon Trail, Cache Creek Natural Area, as it descends back down to Lynch Canyon Trail. Note the erosion on this machine-made trail. Photo taken November 11, 2022, by Don Burk.

The following day, we took Cache Creek Ridge Trail from a trailhead even less developed than Lynch Canyon Trailhead. This trailhead is not much more than a road spur off of Highway 16, ~7 miles south of its junction with Highway 20, where Bear Creek flows into Cache Creek.

Cache Creek. 12 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Cache Creek at the point where Bear Creek, dry at this time of year, joins in. Highway 16 is barely visible. This is where the Cache Creek Ridge Trail begins, but is most likely not reachable during high water. Cache Creek Natural Area, November 12, 2022. Photo by Don Burk.
Bear Creek dry creekbed. 12 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Bear Creek, dry at this time of year, near its junction with Cache Creek. Creekbeds are wonderful places to botanize, and the geology in this one was fascinating. Cache Creek Natural Area, November 12, 2022.
Photo by Don Burk.
California fuchsia. 12 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Don was delighted to find this species in bloom on the bank of Bear Creek. Commonly used in California native plant gardens, California fuchsia, Epilobium canun ssp. latifolium, is seldom seen by us on our top-of-the-state hikes. Cache Creek Natural Area, November 12, 2022. Photo by Don Burk.

Cache Creek Ridge Trail is 9.5 miles long, mostly running along a ridgetop from Highway 16 to the Judge Davis Trailhead on Highway 20. (Judge Davis Trailhead is a developed trailhead with ample parking and toilets, about 1.5 miles west of Lynch Canyon Trailhead.) The trail also more or less demarks a section of the Cache Creek Wilderness boundary, as well as the boundary between Colusa and Lake counties

We did an out-and-back hike of the southern half of Cache Creek Ridge Trail, which is the half that generally parallels Cache Creek. The views were gorgeous! But we had to work for them—there are many steep sections, and the ridgetop is anything but flat. It is not an easy hike; the elevation gain is ~1,500 feet over 2 miles.

Miles of chamise chaparral. 12 Nov 22. D. burk.
Looking northwest from Cache Creek Ridge Trail, Cache Creek Natural Area. Most of the solid green in this photo (as well as in all of the other view photos in this article) is chamise chaparral. Miles and miles of it. The trail can be seen left of center. Photo taken November 12, 2022, by Don Burk.

The trail appears to be an old road for its entirety. We wondered if it wasn’t meant to do double duty as a fire break. While there was little diversity to be seen at this time of the year, we expect that spring will be much more botanically interesting. What was impressive, however, was the extent of chamise chaparral that we could see from the top. We were also impressed by the amount of scat and footprint evidence of a variety of wildlife. We were able to identify elk, deer, rabbit, coyote, bobcat (or mountain lion), squirrel, lizard, and many birds.

View east from Cache Creek Ridge Trail. 12 Nov 22. D. Burk.
Views east toward the trailhead once we got to the top of the rolling ridgetop on Cache Creek Ridge Trail, Cache Creek Natural Area. Photo taken November 12, 2022, by Don Burk.

The greater Cache Creek Natural Area includes numerous trailheads that access many miles of interconnecting trails, providing ample loop and staged-car options. We sampled only three trails and are intrigued enough to go back—in the spring, when the wildflowers are blooming. And next time, we’ll bring a map!
~Laurie & Don Burk