We had ideal weather as we started our long hike off FS20 at the Split Rock TH. Although smoke from the Badger fire obscured our view of Mt. Shasta the temperature at 8:30 at 6,500' was in the 50s with a slight breeze.

We'd been scouting and planning this hike for several months and were excited when we finally got to Go Day. There were five of us in the group, Rich, Liz and Jerry who had also done the 15-miler on Memorial Day, and new joiners Bob Hutton and Mike Sanson.

The Split Rock trail itself runs for 3.1 miles although we all thought it was longer since it took us two hours to reach the junction with Wagner Butte trail and Wagner Glade trail. We did, of course,make a few stops along the way to view wildflowers. The winners of the day were the giant Monument plants and a new flower Liz found which we are calling the Split Rock Penstemon.

And there were a lot of questions for Geologist Bob about how all those giant Granite boulders came to be split. Also there were several hills to climb, including McDonald Peak at near 7,200', followed by steep downhills that we had to take slowly.

At the trail junction we said goodbye to Mike who had decided to do the 6+ mile out and back. The remaining four headed down the forested Wagner Glade trail for 2.3 miles and a descent of 1,900' to FS2060. In the Glade we came across blooming Tower Delphiniums and past bloom Bear grass.

We stopped for our lunch break just off 2060 on the Potlicker trail. We had gone 5.5 miles and still had another 9+ ahead. But we would continue our downhill trend from the Glade all the way to Lithia Park. From a high near 7,200' atop McDonald we would descend to 2,200' in Upper Lithia.

Potlicker is a 0.5 mile windy trail descending 700' through a forest that includes Sugar Pines and their big old cones. It deposited us onto Horn Gap Road. A gentle shaded abandoned road mostly level with lots of flowers on the sides. After 4.4 miles on Horn Gap we connected again with 2060 for our final 3.7 miles down to Lithia.

Jerry proved to be our hero when we got back to our cars as he shared his cooler full of cold Pepsi and Coke. We reached the end of our long hike just before 4 pm and cut 35 minutes off our previous time. We had hiked 14.8 miles and with temps now in the 80s we were starting to get a little tired.

It was a great day, Happy Trails
Rich Stickle

Track download: McDonald Peak to Lithia Park 7-24-20.gpx