OVERVIEW
TRAILHEAD
Multiple Trailheads
LENGTH
5 to 30 miles
DIFFICULTY
Difficult
OVERVIEW
TRAILHEAD
Multiple Trailheads
LENGTH
5 to 30 miles
DIFFICULTY
Difficult
ABOUT
The Wilderness act of 1984 established 23 new wilderness areas including the 37,000-acre Snow Mountain Wilderness in the Mendocino National Forest. The Snow Mountain Wilderness straddles the summit of the North Coast Range within Colusa, Glenn and Lake counties. The area is less than a four-hour drive from San Francisco, Santa Rosa, and Sacramento.
The central feature of this wilderness is the large, broad snow-covered Snow Mountain, which drains water toward the Sacramento River on the east and the Eel River Basin on the west.
Elevations range from 1,800 feet in the gorge of the Middle Fork of Stony Creek to 7,056 feet on the summit of East Snow Mountain Peak. The deep canyons skirting the wilderness compress ecological life zones creating a unique biological sky-island.
Forty miles of trail are located in the wilderness. This leaves a vast amount of acreage very remote and highly conducive to cross-country exploration. The hike to the top of East Peak affords visitors a magnificent view of the Sacramento Valley and the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east, Clear Lake to the southwest, the Coastal Mountains to the west, and the timbered mountains of the Mendocino National Forest to the North.
The 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire had a major impact on the Snow Mountain Wilderness with logs and brush covering many points along the trails in the Wilderness which can make navigation a challenge.
