for the Siskiyou Hiker
by Gabriel Howe, executive director
27 AUGUST 2024 | CASCADE-SISKIYOU NATIONAL MONUMENT, OR. -- I have spent some time at Boccard Point over the years, and a simple Google search of the landmark will retrieve a long list of reviews and trip reports from the usual suspects of ill-informed apps and websites that are taking the fun out of exploring public lands in the name of profit.
Anyhow, if you dig deeper than the well-crafted algorithms go, there is a Bureau of Land Management page that refers to Boccard Point as the heart of the Soda Mountain Wilderness.
Perched at 5,720 feet, the "point" is really the end of a ridge that jettisons south from a 5,900 summit. My first visit there was in 2013.
It was a few years after the Soda Mountain Wilderness was designated by Congress, and longtime friend and Pacific Crest Trail Association staff member Ian Nelson took me there for the first time. Back then, the trail up was just an old road that had been blocked with a string of boulders.
There were a couple of culverts in it, and the old road bed was filled in with grass, some downed trees, and a few tree sprouts that in aggregate were starting to naturalize the prism. Then in 2014, the road was re-graded using heavy machinery in an effort to restore the natural flow of water. The culverts were ripped out.
Later that year, SMC crews scratched a primitive trail into the re-graded slope and things started to heal. Heavy machinery found itself back inside the wilderness boundary on the Boccard Point Trail in a preemptive action associated with the 2019 Klamathon Fire, but never got less than a couple of miles from it.
Boccard Point now
But on a recent late summer morning, I headed back to the monument in search of the heart of the Soda Mountain Wilderness. The drive up Baldy Creek Road is suitable for a low clearance vehicle, but good tires and patience are recommended. At the road's terminus is a small unmarked parking area.
The Pacific Crest Trail is running southwest to northeast and is signed and obvious. But on the northeastern end of the parking area is a small unmarked trail that runs almost parallel the PCT. That's the Boccard Point Trail and you'll know it when you're on it.
Summer grasses grow chest high along the trail, but the path is obvious and well worn. The approximately 2.5-mile trail slowly climbs a slope filled with white fir, Douglas-fir and, if you look closely enough, you'll notice the sugar pine with its ornamental cones adorning high branches.
As you ascend, there are more open areas where the grasses blow about in the wind and the trail crosses a couple of springs before reaching a 5,900 foot summit. This is where the road once ended and from there to Boccard Point, the trail was always just a trail, not an old road, and it narrows through a wooded area before breaking out into some hardscrabble along a ridge.
On my visit earlier this week, I was greeted by an unfamiliar yet natural and curious scent. It took me a minute or two to realize it was the juniper growing from along the cobble and the outcrops that lead to a point named after biologist Bruce Boccard. He noticed the juniper, too, and called his favorite spot in what would become the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument "Juniper Ridge" until his early death in 1997. He was just 34.
According to an old newspaper clip, Boccard was working on his Master's Degree at OSU at the time and had built an impressive resume of conservation accomplishments, including serving as the first president of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council. The organization went on to lead the change that brought along the monument in its original boundaries, the Soda Mountain Wilderness, and a 2017 expansion of the monument.
From the ridge that was named after Boccard, I could see the mud flats exposed by recent releases of the Klamath River. I made out the peaks that I could and let the quiet have the moment. The views from escarpments issue tangible perspective, not unlike gazing at the stars, and we all need moments like this at least sometimes, though the more the better. Boccard Point serves as some low fruit for solitude for which I felt grateful.
Then my daydream was interrupted by the howl from a semi truck downshifting on their descent along nearby I-5 and I started my walk down, which was pleasant. There were still a couple of small columbines as well as some wispy paintbrush blooming. A couple of quail ran across the old road bed, the grasses breathed in the afternoon breeze.
This is an old road prism, so it does feel unnatural in that there's an engineered corridor clear of trees that contours to the silhouette of an old road. But old trees have fallen, new trees are starting to grow, and I walked away pleased having been there.
A visit to Boccard on any clear day would be well advised for just about anyone who is up for a five-mile round trip hike with less than 700 feet of elevation relief. Fill up your car with friends, and extend your hike with a juant along the PCT to Little Pilot Peak or Soda Mountain to make the drive well worth it.
Don't let your phone take the fun out of a good adventure. Pick up the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument map and enjoy a much-needed hike to Boccard Point. It never hurts to brush up on your 7 Leave No Trace principles, and long live the backwoods trails.