Marble Mountains Hike

After attending a wedding in Shasta we met my dad for a week of hiking and fishing in the Marble Mountains, just north of the Trinity Alps and southeast of Mt. Shasta. It was a pretty hot hike, but absolutely gorgeous! The year before a wild fire had scorched parts of the area so some of the trail hadn't been replaced very well - sometimes it felt like we were headed straight up the side of a hill and then head right off the other side again.

Our first night we slept with some free-range cattle at an old cow camp. The cows were pretty noisy - we were glad to pick up and move! On the second night we missed a turn along the ridge line and ended up quickly losing about 1500 feet of elevation. After re-orienting ourselves two other hikers happened upon us, having made the same mistake (like I said, the trails weren't very well re-established after the fire). So we enjoyed each others company while we hiked cross-country to hook back up the trail. That night we stayed at a small lake with our new friends Ed and Tim, and played cards - and they shared some of their tri-tip roast with us (for two guys they brought 6 steaks...lucky us!!).

The following day we set up a base camp and hiked to a fire lookout hut at the top of English Peak, followed by more cards and chocolate pudding with oreos! On our fourth day Ed and Tim were headed home but decided to leave a blow up raft and some fishing tackle with us to try our luck in a lake that treated them so well the day before. Well....turns out the raft was more weight than help with the fishing. I caught one from shore with a fly and Mike got one while out in the boat with a lure. Not a very successful fishing day...but we sure made a feast out of them! I found some wild onions in a nearby field and we threw the fish into some foil with the onions and some bacon and cooked them up in a fire. So delicious!

The next day was slated to be our last, but during lunch we decided to toss the fly around in a stream and we were landing fish left and right! We decided to camp 2 miles from our car and spend the evening and the following morning fishing. That night we had an amazing feast of fish. We heated up some flat rocks in the fire and cooked them right there with some corn meal and oil. Below are some pictures!!

Marble Mountain Backpacking Selected Photos