The Bucks Lake Wilderness is a

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...

located in the

Plumas National Forest Plumas National Forest is a 1,146,000-acre (4,638 km2) United States National Forest located at the northern terminus of the Sierra Nevada, in northern California. The Forest was named after its primary watershed, the Rio de las Plumas, or F ...

section of the Sierra Nevada, in northeastern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Geography

The wilderness lies in

Plumas County Plumas County () is a county in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,790. The county seat is Quincy, and the only incorporated city is Portola. The largest community in the county is ...

south of

Lake Almanor Lake Almanor is a large reservoir in northwestern Plumas County, northeastern California, United States. The reservoir has a capacity of and a maximum depth of about 90 feet (27 meters). It is formed by Canyon Dam on the North Fork of the Feath ...

. It protects the northernmost end of the

Sierra Crest The Sierra Crest is a roughly generally north-to-south ridgeline that demarcates the broad west and narrow east slopes of the Sierra Nevada and that extends as far east as the Sierra's topographic front (e.g., Diamond Mountains and Sierran e ...

, which beyond the canyon of the North Fork

Feather River The Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is just over . The main stem Feather ...

, is no longer distinct. The

California Wilderness Act of 1984 The California Wilderness Act of 1984 is a federal law (Public Law 98-425), passed by the United States Congress on September 28, 1984, that authorized the addition of over within the state of California to the National Wilderness Preservation ...

set aside the wilderness. The reservoir for which it is named is considered a "boater's Mecca" and is just outside the wilderness boundary.

Natural history

The topography is classic Sierra Nevada with gentle slopes on the western side, glacial cirques, and areas of bare granitic rock. The highest point is Mount Pleasant (7,054 ft). Of the 13 cirques in the area, the one-mile (1.6 km)-wide Silver Lake is the largest, located below Spanish Peak of the Sierra crest, just outside the wilderness boundary. The North Fork Feather River canyon forms the north boundary and the wilderness includes its -long canyon wall. The wilderness provides habitat for the

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

, coyote,

mountain lion The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. ...

, mule deer and black-tailed deer as well as eagle, peregrine falcon, owls and the

willow flycatcher The willow flycatcher (''Empidonax traillii'') is a small insect-eating, neotropical migrant bird of the tyrant flycatcher family. There are four subspecies of the willow flycatcher currently recognized, all of which breed in North America (inc ...

. Vegetation includes conifers such as sugar, lodgepole and Jeffrey pine with almost pure stands of

red fir ''Abies magnifica'', the red fir or silvertip fir, is a western North American fir, native to the mountains of southwest Oregon and California in the United States. It is a high-elevation tree, typically occurring at elevation, though only rare ...

on the highest elevations. Streams and wet meadows have alder and aspen trees, corn lilies and montane chaparral. There are three adjacent units of roadless areas, the largest of which has Bucks Mountain, Bald Eagle Mountain and Bucks Creek.

Bucks Lake

See Bucks Lake for full article. The dam was begun by the Feather River Power Company, which was owned by R.C. Storrie and Robert Muir. The company bought , including the Bucks Ranch and began construction in early 1926. Three years and eight million dollars later, the company had financial problems and ended up selling the project to Great Western Power Company who completed the project in 1928. The -capacity reservoir is created by the high rock-fill dam on Bucks Creek, covers and is operated by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

Notes

References

*Adkinson, Ron. ''Wild Northern California''. The Globe Pequot Press, 2001
Bucks Lake Wilderness
Plumas National Forest, US Forest Service

External links