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Butte Meadows Outdoor Adventurer Biking Hiking National Forests Trails

Explore the Colby Mountain Lookout Area

December 08, 2025 (Originally published February 24, 2021)
Humboldt Bike Trail (2025)

Explore a pre­mier alpine land­scape at Col­by Moun­tain Look­out and Col­by Meadows.

Locat­ed north­east of Butte Mead­ows in the Lassen Nation­al For­est, this area’s high­er ele­va­tion and cool­er tem­per­a­tures makes it an ide­al get­away for sum­mer adventures.

Hik­ing the Mead­ows and Peaks

While pop­u­lar for cross-coun­try ski­ing and snow­mo­bil­ing in the win­ter, the area trans­forms into a lush, shad­ed hik­ing des­ti­na­tion in the summer.

Col­by Mead­ows Loop: Stay south of the look­out for a short­er, inter­me­di­ate trek through the mead­ows along Col­by Creek.

Look­out Peak: Add mileage and dif­fi­cul­ty by climb­ing to the Col­by Moun­tain Fire Look­out. The peak affords a breath­tak­ing panoram­ic view of the Lassen Nation­al For­est and the sur­round­ing Sier­ra Neva­da landscape.

Key Info

Trail Dif­fi­cul­ty: Mod­er­ate to Advanced

Trail Length & Type: 7.3 — 9.6 mile loop

Best Used: May — Octo­ber (snow shoes/cross-coun­try skis required in the snowy months, gen­er­al­ly Novem­ber — April)

Dogs: Allowed

Wildlife: Keep an eye out for deer and bears

Oth­er Infor­ma­tion: Expect it to be about 20 degrees cool­er than the valley.

Oth­er Links: All­Trails

Explore the Colby Mountain Lookout Area

Moun­tain Biking

Moun­tain bik­ing enthu­si­asts can enjoy over 60 miles of trails fea­tur­ing three dis­tinct loops.

This area offers true soli­tude, giv­ing rid­ers the chance to have tech­ni­cal sin­gle­track vir­tu­al­ly to themselves.

Col­by Moun­tain Recre­ation Project

The Col­by Moun­tain Recre­ation Project is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort devel­op­ing 40 miles of new, mod­ern sin­gle­track. Designed with jumps, drops, berms, and rock gar­dens, these are some of the best trails in the North State.

Cur­rent­ly, two trails are open to the public:

  • Hum­boldt Drop: A machine-built, 4.5‑mile advanced down­hill sin­gle­track. It fea­tures a 1,500-foot ver­ti­cal descent designed for speed.
    • Note: Advanced fea­tures have ride-around options for cus­tom chal­lenge levels.
  • Escape Trail: A 9‑mile, mul­ti-use, and mul­ti-direc­tion­al cross-coun­try trail. Start­ing at the look­out, this trail is wide enough to accom­mo­date adap­tive moun­tain bikes.

Dri­ving Directions

  • From Chico, take Hwy 32 head­ing east.
  • Pass through For­est Ranch; about 15 miles beyond the town, turn right onto Hum­boldt Road.
  • Con­tin­ue about five miles past Butte Meadows.
  • Turn left into the Jonesville Snow­mo­bile Area park­ing lot to access the trailheads.