We had a pretty mild 2012/2013 winter in CA but the spring
has been equally mild and kept the snow pack in the Sierras (limited as it is
this year) from melting. All of a sudden in the end of April and 1st
week of May the weather turned and the high-country began to give up its stored
melt-water and the lakes began to fill.
Without actually having eyes on the lakes it’s difficult to
ascertain when this begins to occur. You can try calling marinas, if they exist
at the lake you are interested in, or you can try calling Ranger Stations, if
you can get someone on the phone who has a pulse but neither of those methods
are particularly reliable. I use an online resource provided by the California Data Exchange
Center to track water
levels in the lakes I am looking to visit http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/staSearch
(select the radio button for “Station ID/Name” and enter the name of the lake
in question).
I’ve had my eye on Iron Canyon Reservoir for a couple of
years now. Iron Canyon
is in Eastern Shasta County
and is rather remote. It’s a 25mi drive SE of Lake McCloud (which I visited
last spring – CLICK HERE ) and 22mi North of the intersection of Big Bend Rd. &
CA 299 (Intersection is 37mi East of Redding). The lake sits at 2,660’ altitude
and was created in 1965 when PG&E erected an earthen dam impounding Iron
Canyon Creek and feeds the James Black Powerhouse which incidentally is one of
the larger hydroelectric plants in PG&E’s system.
