In 1876, as Del Norte County Sheriff, John C. Wood
arrested four Chinese men and an Indian for robbing
Horace Gasquet's store and killing clerk Michael
O'Mara. Wood had a posse of eighty riders. Family
stories told me that $4,000 in gold was robbed but was
never recovered. Since they were captured, or by some
stories killed, near Kelly Lake and no gold was ever
found, some believe that the gold is still up there!
At left, is one of my camps nearby to Siskiyou
Wilderness; a camp with my wife and three little
granddaughters. Kelly Lake is farther north. Coffee's on!
99% Forest Service land, these mountains!
Stores, motel, Post Office, Karuk Offices, Forest
Ranger Station, campgrounds, hiking &
back-packing trails, biking...and Wilderness
Areas in every direction...
All can be had in Happy Camp, CA!
Happy Camp to Oregon! Turn north at Parry's Market on Davis Road!
Mile Markers and road number change from Happy Camp north to 7C01 than 40S07
called Grayback Road to Oregon!
on groceries before you head out to the hills. All you need is here in town!
Head to the Siskiyou Mountains and Bolan Lake! Gordon's Hill is at the half-mile
mark and is named after Ralph and Genevieve Gordon whose home was here. She
was my 1st grade teacher! Top the hill and see the green valley of Indian Creek
Meadows' homes. See the mountains of forests into the distance! After mining,
Happy Camp was a timber town. There used to be sawmills and veneer mills, 3,000
people, and a good economy. Now the population is down below 1,000. The
Klamath National Forest has over 26 billion board feet of standing timber! The trees
are not all gone! Happy Camp is surrounded by a couple million acres of tall,
evergreen conifer timber trees. At 1,000 feet to over 7,000 feet elevation!
50.7' 123d 23.3'. The Indian Creek Road
climbs through a rock bluff, hangs over the
creek in a rock wall, and bypasses a little
residential area near the "Canyon." Heavy
rain and melting snow can run the canyon
bank-full, right up to the edge of the highway!
Just above the 4 mile is""Devil's Boil" where
the Chinook salmon jump up through the
waterfalls!
Happy Camp area during WWII, from Gray Eagle Copper Mine. Here, the county paved road is
away from the creek, and is above the little ranches in the narrow valley.
Look around! You can see Douglas fir, Sugar pine, Ponderosa pine, Jeffery pine, Knobcone pine,
Incense cedar, Tanoak, Black oak, Oregon White oak, alder, willow, Cottonwood, and occasionally
Yew-wood trees. And planted trees of apple, peach, walnut, and chestnut! MM 5.7 is the site of
the first Forest Service corral and barn of the Happy Camp District...back in 1915. My uncle Lee C.
Waddell helped to build additions to this and use the corrals many times as mountain
mule-packer for the Forest Service for 32 years!
MM 6 GPS 41d 52.0' 123d 24.2' is the old one room Schoolhouse; the 2nd place! It was first built
by volunteers in 1885 at MM 9 Waddell Flat. My great great grandfather Benoni Swearingen
donated his labor and his lumber from his sawmill at his homestead on upper Swearingen Gulch.
The little school was later moved to Milo Walker's place at the 6 mile, perhaps back in the 1930s.
That is where my Dad Joe went to grade School. Waddell's lived at Waddell Flat for many years.
The Forest Service took away the land back in the 1960s.
Homestead. My great
grandparents John and Alice
Sedros homesteaded here in
1900. It is the only place on
Indian Creek...or Jefferson
Scenic Byway, where Preston
Peak can be seen!
Miles in the distance, from which
you can see the Pacific
Ocean...over by Crescent City. Or
you can see all the way to...........
Mt. Shasta!
the deer and black bears up South Fork back in the 1960s. They're both gone now!
They moved here with Herb Cook back in 1922. Cook was known for his mountain
travels and fire lookouts. He worked on the first road to Baldy Mountain Lookout in
1935. I remember my great Uncle John Sedros, Jr. telling of hunting the Preston
Peak area with McClimens and McClimens' step-father Jack Kniffen back in 1929.
Mountains, tall timber, rocky ground, and scattered bears and deer.
A
D
D
E
L
L
Ranch
Deer swimming in the creek! Bear gone so fast that you can't get your camera in time!
California North Outdoor Tour
Scenic Byway Book on Disk! -- ISBN 0-9761434-0-2
Order by mail at this time: send money order or check for $18.00 tax, S & H included to;
James A. Waddell, 1101 Stone Canyon Dr. #1334, Roseville, CA 95661
changes to Grayback Road, under US Forest Service management. Mile marker begin at MM 1.
MM 1 of Grayback Road 40S07 GPS 41d 55.7' 123d 28.6'. Of the section of Jefferson
Scenic Byway, West Branch Campground! Turn off east here, go downhill, cross the creek of the
same name, and find a quiet campground in the tall Douglas fir timber. It is also a summer
camp for Forest Service fire fighters.
Somewhere in these timbered mountains is the lost gold of my Uncle Lee C. Waddell. Chimney
gold he called it! So pure that is was also called Jeweler's gold. I saw the nuggets but I never
did find the lost mine in the thirty years since he died in the snow of Big Ridge...back in 1971.
(See "Death in the Snow" article and poem by James A. Waddell in this compact disk.)
My Dad Joe and Uncle But Titus cross-country skied up to West Branch camp in winter back in
the '50s to check on the buildings. Snow was about 10-feet deep! They skied off the roofs on
home-made Yew-wood skis!
123d 29.4'. On the east side of the road is a
Sugar pine, ridged, purple bark, and perhaps
150 years old....A time of the gold miners?
yellow, gold, brown, and red sprinkled throughout the forest!
MM 10...?? Jefferson Scenic Byway going up Indian Creek Road to Oregon!
You have come to the end of California! The 42nd north parallel! You have left the Klamath
National Forest and entered the Siskiyou National Forest. Mile markers have changed.
Otherwise it would be MM 10. It is the Oregon Border!
At Page Mountain Snow Park just a mile down the road, sledding and cross-country skiing! As
you wind down the road in Elder Creek of the East Fork of Illinois River, you can see the Illinois's
broad valley all the way to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. But that is another story!
Coastal Mountains"...Preston
Peak, to the Majesty of Mt.
Shasta...
you will learn that...
People come and people go
like the sunset and the rainbow
but the mountains are still here
In the words of Native
Americans of the past...
Only the mountains live forever!
