One of California’s Best-Kept Secrets Is an Outdoors Haven

This is the latest in our twice-a-month series on underrated destinations, It’s Still a Big World.

“Here we are,” said Matthew Guthrie, hopping out of his SUV. Guthrie is a guide from Headwaters Adventure Company, an outfitter for all things paddling in Redding, California. We pulled kayaks off the roof as his friendly boxer, Milo, bounces out of his bed in the backseat.

We’re at Keswick Reservoir boat ramp along the Sacramento River Rail Trail. The water is choppy at points, but pleasant, and the sun is casting an end of day gold on the hills around me. No one else is around. Milo jumps on the back of Guthrie’s kayak. He’s a ready-for-anything dog and clearly confident that he’s a good boy.

I was in Redding (population: 95,542) at the invitation of Visit Redding. I’ve been up since midnight Pacific Time, but kayaking in beautiful weather is what is needed to wash the airport out of my head. For many, Redding is known for the horrific Carr Fire in 2018 that burned 229,651 acres, 1,077 homes, and devastated the Whiskeytown recreation area. But Redding is still a world of outdoors activities and escapes—here you can kayak, hike, hunt, and fish, while also rewarding yourself with good food at the end of the day.

“I moved up here for the job,” Guthrie tells me, “but what I really liked about this area is all the fishing and hiking.” Fishing is big in Redding—we talked about the idea of only eating what you personally catch or kill. (It'll become a theme I'll return to in the week.)

“If you’re an outdoor person” he adds, “there’s whatever you want to do outside,” he adds. “And then once the snow falls, Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta are right here." He looks back at Milo, "the town is pretty dog friendly too.”

When we were done, I swung back to my home away from home while in town—Evergreen, a centrally located boutique hotel, which consists of two, nicely appointed apartments (Pine and Gardenia). They sit above a coffee shop by the same name. It is bookable through Airbnb. I stayed in Pine, which has a spacious, but cozy living room with big windows, an open kitchen, two bedrooms, two beds, and one bath. It is only steps away from a coffee shop, which makes incredible toast. The downside is that—and I know how this sounds—they start making bread around 6:00 am. My stomach literally woke me up every morning because of it.

That night I had dinner at Mosaic, a casual restaurant with updated American cuisine (specializing in pizza), within a somewhat elevated atmosphere. Mosaic is the house restaurant for the Sheraton at the Sundial Bridge, but it’s not your typical hotel restaurant.

First, they have a great menu, which is often hard to say about hotel restaurants tied to a chain. For an appetizer, try their wonderful crispy brussels sprouts, which are tossed with lemon marmalade and spiced pecans. For a main, I decided to check out their fortifying braised lamb (Moroccan braised lamb shank. couscous, green chickpeas, date, apricot, lemon vinaigrette, mint yogurt sauce and roasted onion & chili), which I had with Diora pinot noir. I also tried their refreshing King Tut (Lillet blanc, lemon, St-Germain, orange liqueur, orange juice, absinthe rinse, citrus foam), which is garnished with 24k gold flakes. (I was apparently in a citrus mood.)

Secondly, the restaurant and the hotel are both revenue streams for the local conservation nonprofit, Turtle Bay.

“The Sheraton is franchised under Marriott, and it was built by Turtle Bay,” Sous Chef Megan Teren tells me. Turtle Bay Exploration Park is a 300-acre gathering place that features a museum, an arboretum and gardens, a wildlife rescue center, and other outdoor spaces. “All of our funds, after bills are paid, go back to our local museum and park for the community."

Turtle Bay is an interesting place where parents can bring kids to learn about animals and others can come to just enjoy nature. There is a limited number of spaces for housing animals, which means they focus on only those that are unable to survive in the wild on their own. All of the animals are considered ambassador animals—like a bobcat, two foxes, a racoon, or a laughing kookaburra—meaning they are visitor facing and provide educational opportunities. All are trained to do almost entirely what they would do in the wild, and are even taken on unleashed free walks. When they are rare species, they are given reproductive opportunities.

Outside Turtle Bay is the Sundial Bridge which crosses over the Sacramento River, leading to the Sacramento River Trail. The free-standing bridge was designed by Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava. By not using foundation pylons the bridge takes a less invasive form and stays out of the water. It serves as both a public art display and a nicely designed pedestrian bridge with cycling lanes that connects the rest of the Turtle Bay campus.

If you want lunch or a coffee while at Turtle Bay, their riverfront bistro, Branch House, which opened in September, is a convenient stop. (Mosaic is just around the corner for dinner.)

The next day, I joined Larry Jordan and Tricia Ford, two members of The Wintu Audubon Society, to go birding at Lema Ranch, home to the McConnell Foundation, a broad-based philanthropic organization. The conserved land, and its four miles of trails along 200 acres of property, includes wetlands and is a great place for birders.

I know many of the birds at home both visually and by call, but it is always interesting to be birding with others on their turf. For me, it’s like starting over. Jordan and Ford spotted species I’ve never encountered with ease and my eBird list—an app that lets birders track the species they spot—grew by about twelve new species—like the lark sparrow, nuttall’s woodpecker, and the stunning spotted towhee.

I enjoyed hanging out with Jordan and Ford, but stayed longer than I had planned, so I headed north by just over an hour to see the McCloud Falls 3 Fall Loop, a trail that includes the small Lower Falls, much larger Middle Falls, and Upper Falls. The relatively easy 3.9 miles out and back trail, is well-forested and peaceful. I was short on time, so I hiked out to Middle Falls, which I mostly had to myself—soaking in the sounds of the water. Most of the wildlife seemed to stay away from the trail, though I spotted bear scat near the campground.

From there I left for Castle Crags State Park to check out Vista Point, which is a short .3 mile wheelchair accessible trail with pines and hemlocks that comes with a big reward: a panoramic view of three mountain ranges. The Gray Rocks range to the left are made of greenstone and are roughly 500 million years old. Those bump up against the Castle Crags in the middle, which are Late Jurassic (150 million year old) and granite. To the right of that is the colossal Mt. Shasta (14,163 ft), a still living, 500,000 year-old volcano, which you can see an hour away in Redding.

You would be hard pressed to find another viewing space with this kind of return on investment. Keep in mind that, like most state parks, there is an entrance fee you can pay before you enter ($8). There is a machine that takes credit cards and you’ll get a ticket for your dashboard. The drive up is not for cars with trailers and the road eventually narrows to a single car lane.

I now wish I had just an entire day dedicated to Castle Crags, especially with enough time to get in the trail to hike the Crags Trail to Castle Dome, a 5.2-mile out-and-back trail that takes about four hours and includes rock climbing and an elevation gain of 2,066 ft. Instead, I had just enough time to take a densely forested connector to the Pacific Crest Trail for a short hike along the iconic trail before heading back to Redding.

I returned to Redding for dinner at Café Paradisio, a cozy restaurant with a menu in which everything is made in-house and from scratch. I’d skipped lunch, so I was starving. Owner Marshall Glashan and Executive Chef Mike Hallead source locally and organically, offering a range of dishes from a baked brie platter appetizer to Chinese BBQ pork to Chicken Marsala or elk burger. In other words, there are plenty of options. I had their pan-seared, skin-on duck breast, with fresh peaches, prosciutto, shallots, sage, brandy, roasted walnuts, potato hash, onions, and roasted asparagus, and the Hexagenia, from the local Fall River Brewing, a complex beer made with five different hops.

The next day, I did something I’ve never done before: fly fishing—and specifically catch and release.

Redding is a year-round fishing haven, which attracts people from all-around the world.

“I know pretty much everyone out here,” Zach Miller told me. Miller is a fly-fishing guide with The Fly Shop. “It’s crazy how connected people can be within the sport of fly fishing especially here.”

Miller fell in love with fly fishing when he was 8 years old at fish camp. He now is an instructor at the camp. He also occasionally teaches the art of tying flies. “That’s kind of my favorite aspect of fly fishing, is the tying—I get super into it. It’s one of those things, you know, it’s a black hole. Start, you can’t stop.”

I learned the morning of our fishing excursion that we would be doing catch and release.

Confession time: Like most people, I’m a living contradiction. I eat meat—as the duck will testify—but I don’t like to see animals harmed. I’m a gardener who cuts back his plants and trees, but finds himself apologizing to a flower when I accidentally step on it. I even found myself thanking the duck for its sacrifice. I go out of my way to rehome spiders, rather than kill them, but I’ll crush beetles that eat my plants.

You get the picture.

Fishing is something that I feel better about if the fish are harvested. The same goes for any animal. With an uncle who is an avid hunter, I have seen the benefit of someone taking out the middleman in securing their food. Eating what you kill is, in many ways, a more honest thing than the pretty packages we get at the supermarket. Catch and release is not harvesting and it does cause the fish pain—and me too, apparently, because I hooked my own hand at least four times. It also has its benefits, providing a revenue stream for conservation, the ability of stressed populations to recover from climate induced loss or overfishing, and jobs for the local economies built on the outdoors.

So I’m personally not entirely comfortable with catch and release, but I also always have opinions about things I never do personally. I tried it anyway, and yes, there is a thrill to being out on the boat and working hard to bring in your catch. It takes work and concentration. With Miller’s instruction, explaining how the right fly and technique are connected to understanding the fish, I felt that thrill of success. I get why he loves it and I’m still thinking about that experience, though I think I prefer harvesting.

This was also the Turtle Bay day, which I then followed up with one last dinner before I left Redding: Moonstone Bistro. Executive Chef (and Californian), Che Stedman trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. He returned to California and eventually opened Moonstone Bistro in 2006. Moonstone has a seasonal menu, with organic and local produce, along with “free range, cage free meats and sustainable, line caught fish.”

I had their thick-cut chop (organic pork loin, lime-infused hoisin glaze, riced cauliflower, almonds, fresh herbs, pickled ginger, carrot salad, green onion). And yes, while you’d think I’d have wine with my pork loin, I just gave in and had their cocktail, DAMN CANADIANS!—because most of my favorite people are Canadians (Crown Royal Blended Canadian Whiskey, freshly squeezed lemon juice, real maple syrup and a twist).

I came to Redding knowing very little about the area. After a relaxing two and half days in the area, bathing in the forest air, trying new things, and challenging my assumptions, I discovered a place that I’d like to return to—and I mean that. Everywhere I went, I met people who chose to live in Redding for the same reasons I came to explore it. Here you can find that one thing in nature that brings you some peace in a largely chaotic world, and that was something I needed right now.