The Shasta Divide Ridge Trail or, more accurately, the powerline access road on the western ridge of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, is always a pleasing and relaxing hike due to the beautiful views of Whiskeytown Lake, Old Shasta, Redding, and the Sacramento Valley.
For this hike, we had a few individuals just learning native plants and, despite being in the middle of winter, we could identify knobcone, ponderosa, sugar, and gray pines on the trail. Herbaceous plants included wild ginger, narrow-leaved sword fern, milkmaids, Lemmon’s ceanothus, white-leaved manzanita, broad-leaved stonecrop, and, of course, canyon live oak trees.
It’s a fairly steep climb for much of the trail, making it a good start to the new year to find out what kind of shape you are in. Most of the trees in this area did not burn in the Carr Fire due to previous controlled burns of the underbrush. ~David Ledger
