Herd Peak Lookout, Klamath National Forest
From the parking lot below the lookout, 2 flights of stairs and this pathway lead up to the lookout.
Mt. Shasta is 15 miles away to the South. Looking west across the Shasta and Scott valleys you can see the peaks of the Marble mountain wilderness 50 miles away. To the north 40 miles away you can see where Interstate 5 crosses over Mt. Ashland into Oregon. Northwest, highway 97 leads up to Klamath Falls and America’s outback. http://www.byways.org/explore/byways/2142/stories/57980
This is a rotating panorama of the vista around this lookout. It can be slow to load, but is worth waiting for. Clicking on the panorama will stop its motion, and you can then click and drag it manually at different speeds depending upon where you place your cursor adjacent to the edge of the panorama. If it does not appear, you may see a message at the top of the page asking you to turn off your pop-up blocker to allow it to appear. If you see a message in the panorama space reading “out of memory”, just click over to one of the other links on this page, and then back in to this one to make the panorama appear.
Mount Shasta
Four tenths of a mile south of where the gravel road turns off of Hwy 97 to the lookout is a roadside exhibit about Mt. Shasta:
From that exhibit:
“Not
Dead…Just Sleeping.
“Mt. Shasta is the largest volcano in the Cascade
range and part of the ring of fire between British Columbia and Lassen
Peak……”
The slumbering giant you see before you is in
reality quite active and unpredictable. It is certain to erupt again”
“Mt. Shasta has erupted at least ten times in the
past 4,500 years, about once every few hundred years. Mt. Shasta’s latest
eruption may have been in 1786….”
Not to worry. The photo above shows clouds, not Mt.
Shasta blowing its top. J
Driving Directions to
Herd Peak
From the Junction of Interstate 80 and 5 in
Sacramento drive north 230 miles ( about 3 1/2 hours at freeway speeds ) to the
North Weed Blvd Exit # 748. Turn East past the Motel 6 and follow State Hwy 97
towards Klamath Falls. 20 miles from the I-5 exit, at the 5,000 ft. elevation
sign, turn left onto a grey gravel road, FH45N22. A sign at this junctions reads
Herd Peak Lookout 6 miles. About 5 miles up this road turn left onto a red
pumice gravel road to the lookout.
Driving further up Hwy 97 into Oregon, you can take
good paved roads to the Watchman lookout overlooking Crater Lake National Park (
there is a ¼ mile hike to the lookout ); And just south of Bend, Oregon on Hwy
97, you can drive all the way up to the lookout at the Lava Buttes Visitor
center, with its views of the Cascades.
See the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway Scenic
Viewpoints tour:
http://www.byways.org/explore/byways/2587/itinerary/4034