Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area
Whiskeytown, CA

The name Whiskeytown comes from an incident during the region's Gold Rush era involving a team of donkeys that lost their footing on a local trail spilling a load of whiskey into a nearby ravine.

Located 8 miles west of Redding, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area is one of three California National Recreation Areas, situated at the juncture of the Klamath Mountain Range and the northern edge of the Central Valley. Home to a diverse collection of animal and plant life Whiskeytown provides water recreation, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, and camping. Featuring the spectacular Whiskeytown Lake known as the Whiskeytown Unit of the Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area, the lake is especially popular during the hot summer months.

Whiskeytown Lake's 36 miles of shoreline and 3,200 surface acres for recreation is placid --and is excellent for swimming, scuba diving, kayaking, rowing and fishing. Sailing, water skiing and boating are also popular. Personal watercraft are prohibited on Whiskeytown, but are still allowed on Shasta and Trinity Lakes.

Summers are hot and dry, with daytime temperatures often over 100 degrees. Visitors should wear light weight clothing, including a hat when in the sun. Fall days can be warm but with cooler evenings. Winters are wet, the park receives over 55 inches of rain with snow at the higher elevations. Winter daytime temperatures can be pleasant when it's not raining.

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area is located at the juncture of the Klamath Mountain Range and the northern edge of the Central Valley, making it home to a diverse collection of animal and plant life. The park provides outdoor enthusiasts with excellent opportunities for water recreation, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, and camping.

The Klamath Mountains contained the second most productive gold district in California during the 1849 gold rush. Placer gold was discovered in streams and rivers in 1848, and lode gold was found in nearby French Gulch in 1852 with mining continuing for 80 years till 1942. From 1900 to 1914, and again in 1930, gold mining activity created a boom for the area, and then again in the 1980s, when there was a resurgence of mining interest for lode gold, copper, silver, zinc, and iron contained in massive sulfide deposits.

President John F. Kennedy dedicated Whiskeytown Dam on Clear Creek on September 28, 1963, during his last trip to California. The area was authorized on Nov. 8, 1965 and established as a Natural Recreation Area on October 21, 1972. Together with the Shasta and Trinity units (both managed by the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture), Whiskeytown is part of the 42,503 acres of Whiskeytown- Shasta- Trinity National Recreation Area (figure 2). This area receives between 750,000 and 1 million visitors in a year.

The Whiskeytown Unit, with its mountainous backcountry and large, man- made reservoir, preserves the historical remains of the 1849 California Gold Rush. Whiskeytown Lake was created by diverting water through tunnels and penstocks, including the Clear Creek Tunnel, from the Trinity River Basin to the Sacramento River Basin (Prokopovich, 1993). The most prominent geologic feature within the recreation area is the peak of Shasta Bally (elevation 6,209 feet).

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area lies in the Klamath Mountains physiographic subprovince of the Pacific Border Province in northern California. The province extends roughly 70 miles in an east- west direction from the Great Valley west to the Coast Ranges. In northernmost California and southwestern Oregon, the Klamaths are bounded on the east by the Cascade Range, which includes Mount Shasta. The province covers an area of about 11,800 square miles.

Following their formation, the Klamath Mountains were cut by several large rivers into separate mountain ranges. In the western Klamaths, an irregular drainage incised on the Klamath peneplain, an uplifted plateau. The uplift is responsible for a series of successive gold- bearing gravel benches in the canyons of the region.

In California the northern half of the province is drained by the Klamath River and the southern half by the Trinity River. The principal ranges of the Klamath Mountains in California are the Siskiyou Mountains extending northward into Oregon and the Trinity Mountains to the south. Other ranges of the Klamath Mountains include the Salmon, Marble, South Fork and Scott Mountains.

The highest points in the California section of the Klamaths are Thompson Peak, 9,002', and Mt. Eddy, 9,038 ft'. The topography is rugged and steep throughout the entire province.

WHISKEYTOWN OAK BOTTOM CAMPGROUND RESERVATIONS

Managed by Forever Resorts, Oak Bottom Campground is available for camping and you can call to make reservations: (530) 359-2269 (daily 8 am until 5 pm PST) nps.gov