No, it is not a typo, but just to point out that in Lassen County there are three Willow Creeks, and over 200 in the State of California. It is also interesting all three Lassen County Willow Creeks flow in a different direction.  First you have Willow Creek in the northern portion of the county, with its headwaters near Hayden Hill as a reference point and flows in a northerly direction. The second Willow Creek begins on the east side of Eagle Lake and flows in a southeasterly direction. The third Willow Creek, the shortest of the the three is located near Doyle and flows in a easterly direction.  This creek, though of late, has been dubbed Willow Ranch Creek, to distinguish it from other Willow Creeks, and so named from the historic Willow Ranch, which is another story.

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This is an interesting stream which has a small drainage area of 32.1 square miles. In times of very wet years, it can be a raging to torrent. There were several proposals to dam the creek, which will be explored in a future column.

In 1994, the abandoned Skedaddle dam found a new use. It was used as tee-off for an unusual golf tournament. The one-hole course ended at Chalk Bluffs.  This is one those tales, that needs no further details, but a good time was had by all.

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When you start exploring the countryside from Wendel and beyond, one can see a lot of interesting objects. One of the more interesting items are tufa formations. Actually, the Pyramid Lake region has some most spectacular tufa deposits to be found anywhere.

The tufa is composed of calcium carbonate that accumulates from a underwater spring, for an extended period of time. In this case, it was the ancient Lake Lahontan that allowed for the perfect condition for the tufa to form. When the lake receded, then the deposits were revealed.

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One of the perennial questions concerning Honey Lake, when it has water,  is its depth. It is a relatively shallow lake, known to go dry for extended periods. There are a number of variables about the depth, due to the fluctuation of the level of the lake. The east side of the lake is the shallowest. Carl Caudle a civil engineer who resided near the lake’s eastern shore from 1909 to 1942 monitored the lake level there. On an average he recorded a depth of two feet. However, in the spring of 1914 and 1938, both years of record breaking precipitation, the east shore had a depth of six feet. The west side of the lake has the deepest points up to twenty-five feet during years of heavy precipitation.

In late December, 1940  Asa Brown and Jack Sawyer, state fish and game employees conducted a sounding of the lake. They started at the northwest corner, using a measuring pole took measurements every 300 to 400 yards. They recorded a maximum depth of 10.8 feet, and the shallowest at two feet. The lake on the average varied between four and ten feet. In the spring of 1987, Mark Totten and several others participated in an informal sailboat regatta on the lake. Using a depth finder, the areas traversed on the lake averaged seven feet.

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