Redding, CA: More Trails Than We Expected!

We've spent the last few nights in Redding, CA. It's warmed up a bit into the mid 80's and we were happy to have a nice shady site at the Green Acres RV Park, a little green oasis in a rather industrial part of town.

It turns out that Redding has a large, varied trail system in place. From beautiful paved trails along the river to fun mountain bike single track in the foothills, there's something for everyone. This excellent map is available at the visitor center.

We knew we wanted to ride the Sacramento River Trail, but in a comment from Mona Liza we learned that we could easily ride to the trail from our RV park, saving ourselves a bit of hassle. This paved trail follows the river with three pedestrian bridges and multiple access points. We happened to hit it during the fall Chinook salmon migration so we saw lots of fish and fishermen; we even witnessed the fish take flying, twisting leaps into the air!

Sundial Bridge really is a sundial...but it's only accurate on the day of summer solstice.

We could see huge salmon from the bridge.

At waters edge we saw this salmon looking for the right place to spawn.

She would rest for a minute or two, then stir up the sand with her tail.

Next we hiked the Clear Creek Greenway trail...what an excellent choice this turned out to be! Lots of Chinook were making their way up this large, fast moving creek which turns into a small gorge so there were many viewpoints to watch the fish. We also discovered a cascade section and we read that some of the fish actually do make it up the cascade.

We hiked a fairly short section of the Clear Creek Greenway: from the Honeybee Trailhead to the point where the trail crosses the road, about 3.5 miles round trip. Highly recommended at this time of year!

Our first view of the creek offered dozens of Chinook doing their thing in the shallow, rocky pools.

The creek soon enters a gorge; fish viewing points are easily accessible all along the way.

Here is the top portion of the cascade section...which was at least 300 yards long overall.

There were at least 20 fish in the small pool, resting before making attempts at the rushing water.

Caught one in flight!
It was hard to imagine them making it all the way up the entire cascade,
and we never did see one make it to the next level,
but I did see a fish about halfway up the cascade section.

Tomorrow we drive to Napa for a few nights; looks like some wine tasting is in our future! Also, Miss Rosie has inflamed gums (around her snaggle tooth) so she'll be going to the vet on Monday. Fingers crossed she only needs antibiotics!