Smith River National Recreation Area, Redwood Highway 199, northwest California Klamath Mountain coast

Highway 199: Home Contact Redwoods Siskiyous Rogue River		Wheelchair accessible fishing site near Patrick Creek Lodge, Smith River NRA, California
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	Smith River National Recreation Area, California The Smith River National Recreation Area has botanical areas, hiking trails, swimming, backcountry driving tours, and is the primary access to the Siskiyou Wilderness. The water clarity of the river is legendary and makes it easy to understand why many claim the Smith River to have the cleanest watershed in the lower 48 states.

	Backcountry Drives Historic Gasquet Toll Road Patrick Creek Loop Tour Knopki Creek Road Guide Bear Basin Butte Road Guide Hiking Craig Creek Trail Stoney Creek Trail Myrtle Creek Botanical Trail Darlingtonia Accessible Trail High Dome Trail Elk Camp Ridge Trail Cold Springs Shortcut French Hill Trail Gasquet Cemetery Trail		Attractions Unique to this area Siskiyou Wilderness Gasquet Ranger Station Patrick Creek Lodge Pitcher Plant Colony	Two steelhead swimming in the legendary clear water of the Smith River National Recreation Area near Patrick Creek Lodge, Redwood Highway 199.
Geology There are three basic types of rock exposures in the Smith River NRA and all of them represent different components of an ocean crust. This ocean crust was buckled against the continent about 150 years ago. One of the components of the ocean crust are the sediments that settled and accumulated on the ocean floor. The ocean crust itself makes up another significant component and the mantle rock that once was situated under the ocean crust makes up the third component. Smith River NRA has the most complete ocean crust geology in the United States and is part of the largest outcrop of mantle rock in North America. In the northeast part of the Smith River NRA are older rocks, about 200 million years old, that also make up the much of the Siskiyou Wilderness. These are also fragments of ocean crust and mantle rock. All of the rocks in the region were intruded by a series of volcanic events between 130-140 million years ago. The cores of this igneous activity cooled to form diabase, a rock that appears much the same as granite.
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Smith River National Recreation Area, California

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