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Late Saturday afternoon, we turned off I-5 to look for a campground. We were a little disappointed to find that so many campgrounds seemed to be closed for the season or for construction work. However, we did eventually find an open campground several miles up the McCloud River which flows into Lake Shasta. The site was located next the the river, between steep peaks (see above, click on image for larger view).

I’ve just done a bit of searching around for information on the McCloud River and found a webpage containing a few paragraphs on the area. In part, it says:

Above the McCloud Arm are towering grey limestone mountains, formed from ocean sediments that accumulated 200 – 300 million years ago. The Grey Rocks, as they are called, are full of the fossilized remains of corals, snails, clams and other sea creatures that existed in prehistoric times.

Interesting thing about mention of fossils. My friend found what looked to be some kind of coral fossils in a large chunk of limestone right next to our tent site (see above).

We found quite a few insects along the river near the campgrounds. More about them in my next post. However, here’s a shot of one of the caterpillars that we found while out for a walk on the road above the river. I found them on what looked to be some type of Sweet Clover — or a plant that much resembles what we call Sweet Clover back home in the east. I’m not sure what these might be, but they reminded me a bit of Western Tent caterpillars or Fall Webworms. I don’t have my insect field guides along on this trip, so if anyone happens to recognize this guy, please do post a comment below.