Ancient mudflow substrate atop older basalt stacked above 75 million year old sedimentary sandstone and eroded by a creek for millennia created Butte Creek Canyon. Seeps and ghost waterfalls slide off the north canyon slopes this wet season and drain into the many tributaries that join Butte Creek far below. When I visited in late March the dense green herbs on seepy slopes promised wildflower carpets but, except for a few patches, spring sunshine hadn’t yet teased out many blooms. This area is directly below the serpentine barrens I described previously.
The rocky barely-one-lane road begins atop a Sierra ridge at 2,550 feet elevation and clings to the north canyon wall. It descends past vanished historic gold mining towns — Irish Town, Helltown, Mineral Slide, Diamondville — finally reaching Butte Creek and scattered residences at 700 feet elevation. Before the miners and other Europeans, Konkow Maidu lived and traveled through here. One group (Konkow) lived higher in the foothills above the Feather Rivers, and another Konkow group, the Mechoopda, lived 30 miles downstream in the Central Valley near what is now the town of Chico, California.
In 1841 John Bidwell was one of the first European immigrants to travel across the continent west to California (the Spanish were here already). He arrived in 1843, was working with John Sutter when gold was discovered in 1848 at Sutter’s Mill (near Sacramento), and found his own goldfields further north along the lower Feather River. Bidwell ultimately took over a Spanish land grant parcel, Rancho Chico, that was part of Mechoopda land, and in 1851 signed a Treaty between the US government and the Mechoopda indians, thus formally seizing Indian lands. Those Indians lived along Butte Creek.
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The north slope now is green, lush with grasses, wildflowers and chaparral scrub. At intervals, I catch at view of the south slope across the canyon, its rocky cliffs vivid with seasonal grasses and pockets of manzanita chaparral. For one second, I spied a dramatic vista of snow-covered Mount Lassen rising behind the flat ridgeline, but where it’s open enough to take a photo, the volcano and Cascade Mountain range aren’t in sight due to the canyon/road angles.
The most fascinating aspect of the canyon is its geology, even though I’m plant-minded and brake for wildflowers. The lower substrate layer is the 75 million year old sedimentary rock of the Chico formation. Mostly sandstone and marine deposits, it is relatively soft compared to the substrates above it. As the creek carved the canyon, this formation was undercut and rocks from the upper strata tumbled atop the Chico formation. The next layer up is the Lovejoy basalt, about 15 million years old. Basalt is hard, resists weathering, and as the Chico formation was undercut huge slabs of basalt fell down.
Ultimately as the creek cut deeper, the basalt formed cliffs high up on the canyon walls. Above all this, the Tuscan formation is only four million years old and composed of layered ash, volcanic mud flows (lahars) and patches of alluvium. These substrates extend north from here, but not south, and define the transition zone between the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges.
Butte Creek, the artist who sculpted this canyon, has the largest run of wild naturally-spawned spring salmon in California. These days, this isn’t many salmon. Butte Creek connects without dams to the Pacific Ocean via the Sacramento River and the Delta. The watershed begins at 7,087 foot elevation further north near Mount Lassen, comprises 510,000 acres. The creek runs for 25 miles through the canyon.
Small seeps along the upper end of the canyon had miner’s lettuce beginning to bloom and shield-bracted monkeyflower.
One of the few native wildflowers blooming on the north canyon slope in late March, was yellow star tulip (it’s a mariposa lily, not a tulip) Besides the chaparral clematis vine twining over the dense poison oak and buck brush shrubs on the steep slopes below the road edge, star tulip was the most abundant native flower.
California buckeye is a small tree in a weird plant family (Sapindaceae — Soapberry) that also includes maples, horse chestnut, lychee, and the Ohio buckeye of football fame. The “soap” part refers to the milky sap and other saponins that are mildly toxic, but some are used in cosmetics and as surfactants. Butterflies, native bees, and hummingbirds thrive on buckeye flower nectar but it is toxic to honey bees. The fruit looks like chestnuts, but it is toxic and contains a chemical similar to rat poison.
Near the lowest point of this trip, along the canyon floor, I saw a rock patterned with lichen that looked like art or graffiti.
In wet areas I saw California pipevine (not yet flowering) and its associated pipevine swallowtail butterfly busy laying eggs on the leaves. Wildlife known to live in the canyon includes wintering bald eagles, western pond turtle, red-legged frog, tree frog, deer, black bear, coyote, bobcat, beaver, Sierra newt, ash-throated flycatcher, yellow warbler, turkey, and western bluebird. Of these, I saw a beaver dam plus newts, eagles, turkeys, and deer. I’ve never seen a western pond turtle and I’ve looked everywhere. They are rare! Finally, as we wound back upslope on a one lane blacktop road etched into the steep canyon wall, I found a few patches of California Indian pink blooming in moist shady areas.
Yeah, I got poison oak from this trip. I used pre and post exposure Tecnu or it would have been worse. I longed for a piece of clematis vine to scent the car with sweetness even though it mingled among dense, chin-deep poison oak crawling over buck bush. I tried not to wallow in it and snagged a piece so fragrant and gorgeous it was worth the risk. A couple days after this trip, I woke up at 4am clawing my itchy hands and by mid-day, the rash was along one side of my face and in an impossible to reach spot between my shoulder blades on my back (how did it get there?).
Totally worth it!
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