While down in McCall for the Fourth, we decided to escape the teenage meat market that was downtown for the solitude and view of a nearby mountaintop. So we took Lick Creek road out of town to the east for about ten miles to the Fall Creek Saddle trailhead (hike #23 in the McCall hiking guide). The guide said the trail was 5.4 miles out and back and would take an average hiker about 3 1/2 hours to make the round trip. It took us about 3.
Three miles out the road turns to basically single lane gravel. It's also the road to Yellow Pine. I failed to get a picture of the trailhead. This is about half a mile up the trail from the trailhead, and maybe 500 ft elevation gain of the 2200 total that will take us to the peak overlooking Crystal Lake and McCall.
One of many hillside meadows on the way up.
A fire a few years ago left a dead forest on the eastern slope that was warming a bit on this July morning.
There was still a bit of snow covering the trail in spots. In one place we had a hard time finding the trail on the other side.
I took no picture of the saddle, mostly trees blocking the views anyway. From the saddle the trail heads both north and south. We chose south to get to the peak that overlooks Crystal Lake. Here is the cliff on the east side of the ridge.
To the west the land falls away more gently, making us think this hike might be enjoyable from the McCall side, though much longer.
Crystal Lake well below.
The inimitable Ben Walden. My very own guitar hero. And quite a hiker.
The head dufus watching a large-wheeled Super Cub coming in from the wilderness area toward McCall. 30 yards to my front is farely steep cliff down to Crystal Lake, while here is a gentle meadow, at 7900 ft elevation.
McCall from the top.
The last steep climb up to the saddle from the marshy meadow. Here we are going back down it. 3 bars of cel coverage just twenty yards from here. And none here on the side away from McCall. That's Von Walden and Tina Hilding heading down the trail with their son Ben.
Oh my God, the 2.7 miles down was hard! Much harder than the up. I rolled my right ankle 3 times, and blistered my left big toe for an inch in diameter. The stream by the car park was EXTREMELY cold, but I thoroughly enjoyed the soak anyway.
Beautiful, but don't drink the water.
