Located within a stone's throw of a lightly-fished stretch of the Upper Sacramento River, the Shasta Springs Trout Camp is a rustic yet comfortable forest sanctum. Enveloped in sylvan serenity, the camp enchants anglers and non-anglers alike.
The Wintu tribe thrived on the large runs of Chinook salmon and steelhead in the Upper Sacramento Canyon for millennia before the arrival of white settlers in the mid 1850's. The railroad arrived in the 1880's and several large resorts, around the town of Dunsmuir, soon followed, capitalizing on the bubbly soda springs and their putative medicinal properties.
By 1945, the Shasta Dam was finished, completely blocking salmon and steelhead migrations. The Upper Sac's trout fishery, however, continues to flourish, gaining a reputation as one of the top trout-fishing destinations in California.
On the night of July 14, 1991, the worse case scenario befell the Upper Sac. A Southern Pacific railroad tanker car derailed on the sharp Cantara Loop curve just 2 miles upstream from the trout camp. The tanker car dumped 19,000 gallons of the potent soil fumigant-pesticide, metam sodium, into the river. The chemical quickly dispersed into the swift moving river and formed several highly toxic compounds. These compounds killed all aquatic life for miles. Residents along the river, from Cantara to Shasta Lake, were evacuated.
For three years from 1991 to 1993 the river was closed to fishing while CalTrout played an instrumental role in the recovery efforts. When the Upper Sac re-opened in 1994 fish populations had rebounded and the fishing was reported to be excellent. Fish populations decreased following high flows in the winters of 1996 and 1997, but since then have been steadily on the rise.
CalTrout bought this 40-acre parcel along the river following the spill in 1993 to protect open space along the river corridor. In 2001 the Shasta Springs Trout camp was established as place for CalTrout members to learn about CalTrout conservation activities statewide and to raise public awareness of our efforts to protect wild trout and steelhead and their threatened habitat.
The camp is comfortably equipped with an outdoor kitchen, an ice-cold spring providing potable water, and tents and tent platforms. The camp can accommodate up top six guests at a time, ensuring light pressure on the miles of adjacent stream.
