Virtual Guidebook to Mount Shasta and the Klamath-Trinity Mountains
Smith River
Six Rivers National Forest California

After years of relentless logging the upper Smith River was beginning to look pretty badly chopped up, with square clearcuts and a dense network of logging roads right to the ridgetops. But then federal policy changed and the entire area, though still part of Six Rivers National Forest, is now managed for recreation and resource protection, rather than multiple use that emphasized logging.

The South Fork of the Smith River is a famous steelhead stream, and an exceptionally beautiful one too. An historic route, the Kelsey Trail, runs through here - built in the 1850's by Chinese labor to connect Fort Smith to the coast, it is now restored as a National Recreation Trail.