The Monday AHG made its first venture into California this year to explore Horseshoe Ranch and Fall Creek Falls. We started out at 8:30 under grey and windy skies.

It was a new hike for about a third of our group of 16. We stopped at the Chevron/Food Mart just off the Hornbrook/Extt 789 to purchase individual day passes for Horseshoe Ranch. Then it was a 12-mile drive on Copco Road to the HRWA.

We arrived at the TH just after 9:30 am.

At first, we couldn't see Scotch Creek down in the canyon through the brush, but as we headed up the trail, it appeared, although with less water running than in past Springs.

We saw several wildflowers as we hiked up the trail, which took us to Scotch Creek and a crossing on stones in the water. The shallow water allowed the group to cross for the first time since we started this hike in 2023. Once we were across, we followed an old ranch road up to the only structure on the hike, a winter shelter for storing hay for the horses. On our way back down the road, we saw our first horses, a group of five, that we saw through the trees back on the other side of the creek.

We hiked up from the creek trail to the elevated meadow and an open expanse of the ranch. We followed a trail on the east side of the creek and turned with the creek to the right to find another higher meadow. In the past, horse herds had come through the meadow to reach the creek for water. We were able to watch them from our lunch spot on a hill overlooking the meadow. But not on this overcast and blustery day with occasional raindrops.

After lunch, we headed back down and across the meadow, where we found a tributary creek with a trickle of water falling over a cliff.

As we headed back towards the TH, we found the same five horses, who came up from a sheltering tree, to get a closer look at the human visitors.

Then we drove to the bonus exploration of our hike, another 5 1/2 miles up Copco Rd. We were in the Native lands and parked by a closed bridge over the Klamath River with a posted sign "Shasta Indian Nation".

There were brightly colored flowers leading to the bridge, with the special yellow Lupines our standout favorites.

Randy showed us a new trail on Tribal land that took us up to Fall Creek Falls cascading down over a volcanic Basalt rock wall. It was a spectacular view!

On this day, we hiked seven total miles with 850' of gain.

Happy Trails,
Rich