Sacramento River Bend Area, Bureau of Land Management, Red Bluff, California

usbackroads destinatiion--Sacramento River Bend Area, Bureau of Land Management, Red Bluff, California

John Muir described the Sacramento Valley as a sea of wildflowers when he crossed it on his trip to the Tuolumne Yosemite.   In a little over a hundred years the natural landscape of the valley has been destroyed by everything from agriculture to subdivisions to water projects to highways.  Only bits and pieces of the natural landscape remain and unfortunately it is partly the same ecological landscape that was here a 100 years ago.  The native grasses have been replaced by European and Asian species.  Much of the fish and wildlife species have disappeared.  However, there are remnants of the original landscape and the Sacramento River Bend area is one of the larger ones.

It is more a regional park than your typical BLM desert area.  Here is the BLM link to information on the area.  There is a good brochure that is available at the Redding BLM office or the California Welcome Center in the outlet mall in Anderson, California.  Or you can download it here: Sacramento River Bend .

Brochure.  Be sure to also download the map here:Sacramento River Bend Map.  You will need the map to navigate the roads in the area.  A trails listing for the trails managed by the Redding office can be found here:  BLM Redding Office Trails.  The trails have plenty of miles to explore.

The brochure talks about camping on BLM lands, but we found no places that were suitable.  Which is unfortunate.  The BLM does mention that there is camping at the northern end along the Spring Branch Road, however, the creek crossing at the entrance limits entry to pickup trucks with campers.  The BLM should at least consider opening some of the day use sites to camping during the winter months or put in a simple overflow parking lot for boondocking during the winter months.  Summer I suspect is a different issue.

The gravel and dirt trails are perfect for walking and in dry weather for mountain bikes.  The main road in the Bass Pond unit is perfect for bicycling with light traffic and few grades.   Bugaboo and Snowpatch did enjoy exploring the area trails.

For Snowpatch he is just starting to get into hunting.  So is this a point?  He did find a dead muskrat which he was rather proud of and refused to let it be.   I am not sure when open season is on dead muskrats.

Like the lower Coeur d'Alene River in north Idaho, these BLM lands have lots of wetlands and ponds.  Great country for bird watching.  This is Bass Pond with a nice dock to sit and watch the coots.

Great area to explore.  More like a Regional Park than BLM lands, but that is ok.  The facilities are in great shape so take good care of them.  These days the taxpayers cannot afford to go fixing stuff that yahoo's destroy.

This is a picture of a State of California wildlife access site on the north end of the area.  There is really no excuse for this.  The state of California Fish and Wildlife Department really need to clean this up.   It appears that they have given up managing the public lands that are their responsibility.  Don't let this happen to your BLM managed lands!!