Reservations, unfortunately, need to be made in advance if intending to spend any holiday weekends or summer days in your RV in any park chosen so we spent the morning at the Holiday Harbor clubhouse/store/restaurant attempting to contact RV parks to the north of us. We logged onto the restaurant wifi network which was slower than either molasses or dial-up. Any attempts to reserve RV spots online were foiled by the primitive wifi network available. Attempts to contact parks north of us by phone was also problematic because the cell phone service at Holiday Harbor is also spotty, disconnecting callers at the most inopportune times.
After quite a bit longer than it should have required, we managed to get secured reservations through Memorial Day but not much further. By 1:00 PM, we were finished with the onerous task and were free to explore.
We hopped into Charlotte, crept up the Holiday Harbor access road of death and veered onto I-5 southbound. We had only gone about 5 miles before we discovered that I had not ascertained that we had our Nikon with us for photos of any explorations we make so we turned around and went back down the access road of death to get what we needed. Another pass up the Camino de la Chickens and we took off onto I-5, this time northbound.
Not 25 miles up I-5 is Castle Crags, a California state park with a series of spectacular rock formations, in addition to a nice shady forest. We exited I-5, drove the short distance to the entrance booth and gave the nice volunteer ranger $7 to drive into the park. The roads in the park are very narrow so we crept along at about 10 mph before we found a spot where we could park our enormous, beloved truck and get out for a bit of strolling. We took a short path to a place listed as an observation point although we were in thick forest and views of anything other than trees seemed impossible. After a very pleasant walk, we arrived at a clearing on a ridge where we could gaze at Castle Crags to the west and a magnificent Mount Shasta to the north. The views are stunning.
After our walk, we left the park and continued north on I-5 until we turned east on CA-89 north of Dunsmuir. 89 is a gorgeous, mostly-straight pass through pine forest with the imposing volcano, Mount Shasta, to the north. About 40 miles from Dunsmuir, we took a short scenic loop to check out the McCloud River’s Lower Falls, which turned out to be a nasty set of rapids and not really a waterfall, per se. Yosemite Falls – that’s a “falls.” McCloud River Lower Falls ain’t although it is located in the middle of some gorgeous country.
After about 50 or 60 miles, we came to Burney where we turned west on CA-299, a screwy road through some beautiful forests before descending into river valleys just chock-full of hardwood trees and giant pastures. Maybe 50 miles later, we pulled back into Redding where we turned north to again head down the death road into Holiday Harbor. I-5/CA-89/CA-299 is a very nice series of roads through magnificent scenery and we recommend it.
Check the pix. Click here