California's forbidden waterfall may finally get a legal trail
The couple from Chico had driven their station wagon up to Dunsmuir in search of one of California's most spectacular waterfalls - knowing they'd have to trespass to get to it.
"I'm mostly a rule-follower but I'm breaking the rules today," said the driver, stepping out of his Subaru in cargo shorts and sunglasses.
It was a playful acknowledgement of the strange conundrum at Mossbrae Falls. Set deep within a narrow canyon on the Upper Sacramento River, it's a top attraction in California's mountainous north state - drawing an estimated 40,000 sightseers per year - and yet visitors must traipse through private property to get to it.
There's an element of danger as well: Much of the main, 3-mile path to the falls traces a stretch of active railway carved into the canyon wall above the river. Hikers pad warily along train tracks, ears perked for the telltale rumble of rolling steel, sometimes having to duck off to the side when a locomotive roars through. At least two people in recent memory have been hit by passing trains, and a hiker drowned in the river last year en route to the falls.
It's been this way for some 75 years. Yet people who brave the hike to Mossbrae often come away bewildered, wondering: Why don't they put a trail in here?
City leaders and advocates have been trying for decades. Attempts to unlock public access to the falls have failed to gain traction with the landowners on each side of the river. The west side is owned by Union Pacific Railroad, which operates the train tracks. The east side property is held by a secretive religious group called the Saint Germain Foundation, which occupies a sprawling retreat center in the woods.
Now, after years of negotiations, city officials in Dunsmuir say they're on the verge of a breakthrough.
According to Mayor Juliana Lucchesi, the city is poised to sign a 99-year lease agreement with Union Pacific that would mark a critical first step in building a proper, legal hiking trail to the falls - complete with a footbridge and boardwalks by the river. Lucchesi said the deal could be finalized as soon as this month.
In an email to the Chronicle, a Union Pacific representative didn't confirm specifics but said railroad leaders "share the City of Dunsmuir's goal of creating a safe, legal way for the public to enjoy Mossbrae Falls without walking along active railroad tracks."
In anticipation, Dunsmuir's city council voted on Thursday to apply for a federal grant that, if approved, would cover the bulk of the estimated $26 million cost of the new boardwalk trail. Lucchesi said the expectation of an agreement with Union Pacific bodes well for landing the grant.
"The floodgates are open with people going there, and they're not going to close, and it's a public safety issue, so we need to do something about it," Lucchesi said. "We'd be silly to put our heads in the sand and say, ‘If we don't talk about it, it'll go away.' It won't."
City leaders, county officials, local residents and visiting hikers have hoped for and dreamed about a public trail to Mossbrae. It would be a momentous turn for one of California's beautiful but forbidden natural features - like the birth of a grand, new landmark.
And for the city of Dunsmuir, whose economy has suffered with the decline of logging and railroads, it represents hope for a much-needed rejuvenation.
A Union Pacific train makes it's way along the tracks on the path most people use to reach Mossbrae Falls along the Sacramento River outside Dunsmuir, Calif., on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 in Dunsmuir. The famously spectacular and highly controversial Mossbrae Falls up in the state's far north is finally going to get a hikers trail. (Obtained by/S.F. Chronicle)
The unofficial trail to Mossbrae begins in a quiet cabin community north of downtown Dunsmuir where a one-lane cement bridge intersects with the train tracks. After parking nearby, the driver, Ron Fankhauser, and his girlfriend, Mary Stark, grabbed their packs and began their journey.
After about 40 minutes of walking along the tracks without incident, passing other groups coming and going, they picked their way down a forested embankment toward the thundering sound of the falls.
Mossbrae is not a focused waterfall with a single spout. Fed from an underground spring, it oozes out of the forest floor and gushes over the rim of a broad basalt cliff that shapes a bend in the river, with dozens of rivulets forming magnificent curtains of water that plummet into the stream below. Its surface is overgrown with tufts of grass, verdant mosses and bright ferns, so wide that it fills a viewer's entire field of vision. Hikers say it's like standing before a theater of water.
From the stream bank opposite the falls, Fankhauser and Stark gazed up at the falls, its spray misting their faces. They said the noise was deafening.
"I worked for the National Park Service for much of my career and I've never seen anything quite like this," Fankhauser said after viewing the falls.
"I don't think we should keep these beautiful gems hidden," Stark said. "I think we should allow as many people as possible to enjoy them."
Water drops onto boulders at the base of Mossbrae Falls along the Sacramento River outside Dunsmuir, Calif., on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 in Dunsmuir. The famously spectacular and highly controversial Mossbrae Falls up in the state's far north is finally going to get a hikers trail. (Obtained by/S.F. Chronicle)
People trespassing to get to the falls has been well documented going back to at least the 1950s. That was when the Saint Germain Foundation, a religious organization with spiritual roots on nearby Mount Shasta, purchased a large plot of land along the east side of the river enveloping Mossbrae.
The property formerly kept the Shasta Springs Resort, which operated from the late 19th century until the 1930s. During the resort's heyday, guests would hike to Mossbrae in wool breeches and corseted dresses, picnic by the falls and fish for trout in the stream. Saint Germain, whose doctrine holds that humans are divine beings, used the resort grounds, including its cottages and gathering spaces, as a retreat center.
After reaching as many as 1 million adherents in the mid-20th century, Saint Germain's contemporary following seems to have wound down. But the foundation still owns the land around Mossbrae and maintains a presence there. Signs posted along chainlink fences there read: "Private property. No access to Mossbrae Falls. Absolutely no trespassing."
Scenes of the area around Mossbrae Falls in Dunsmuir, where city officials hope to install a legal hiking trail. (Gregory Thomas/S.F. Chronicle)
For a long time, Mossbrae was something of a local secret - one of many water features in the region where townsfolk would swim, fish and play on hot summer days.
That changed with the advent of social media and as images of the place began to surface in people's Instagram feeds. The wide exposure has sent a steady march of tourists with selfie sticks to the falls almost daily. Without an obvious trail to follow, gawky visitors would arrive in town asking for directions to the falls. For a while, local shopkeepers got a kick out of playing dumb or purposefully misleading them.
Then the pandemic hit and visitation rose "exponentially," Lucchesi said. Detailed trip reports and photo guides circulated online. For the past five years it's felt more like a free-for-all, with curious sightseers finding their way to the falls, often in clumsy or hazardous fashion.
Using visitor cell phone data, Discover Siskiyou County's Economic Development Council tallied upwards of 40,000 Mossbrae hikers one year, according to program director Heather Dodds. Stories abound of hikers dodging trains, fumbling across the rocky stream and being run off of Saint Germain's property.
Locals in Dunsmuir and the nearby town of Mt. Shasta say Mossbrae hikers attempting to sneak across the retreat center property have been chased through the woods by acolytes in white cloaks. The Saint Germain Foundation did not reply to Chronicle inquiries for this article, though the group has denied such claims in previous reports. In correspondence with Dunsmuir city officials and others, the group has expressed concern about "frolicking, desecration and clutter" from the onslaught of visitors.
Three friends visiting from Red Bluff make their way along the Union Pacific train tracks which visitors walk along to access Mossbrae Falls along the Sacramento River outside Dunsmuir, Calif., on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 in Dunsmuir. The famously spectacular and highly controversial Mossbrae Falls up in the state's far north is finally going to get a hikers trail. (Obtained by/S.F. Chronicle)
Dunsmuir leaders say litter and graffiti are a problem along the train tracks and the falls viewing area, and that laying an official trail with basic facilities like trash cans would help reduce the mess. Authorities have cited hikers for trespassing "every once in a while," Lucchesi said, "but we can't afford to police this adequately."
Building an official trail would almost certainly be a boon to the local tourism economy. But really, Dunsmuir officials say, it's about public safety.
Last year, a 66-year-old tourist from Southern California drowned trying to get to the falls. While attempting to ford the fast-moving river downstream of Mossbrae, she lost her footing and was swept away.
Two people are known to have been injured on the train tracks in the past 15 years. In one instance, a hiker at a narrow bend knelt down to get out of the way of an oncoming train and was clipped as it rolled past, sustaining brain damage. In the other, a hiker standing on the tracks while listening to music and taking photos was hit and then helicoptered to a hospital.
Aware that people walk the tracks near Mossbrae regularly, train engineers slow down to about 10 mph through the river canyon, locals say.
"We have videos of people riding horses in there, school groups walking on the tracks, people in wheelchairs," Lucchesi said. "At what point do you finally say, we need a safe, legal route to this destination?"
In the 2000s, determined to rectify the issues at Mossbrae, the Mount Shasta Trail Association mounted a campaign to create a hiking path to the falls.
For a period, a Saint Germain representative signaled a willingness to sell some property on the east side of the river for purposes of installing a public trail, according to John Harch, the trail association's president. But negotiations fizzled Saint Germain then backed out altogether, Harch said. The foundation has disputed that account in previous reports, saying it never intended to sell the area around Mossbrae.
The trail association also tried persuading Union Pacific to grant an easement for public access on the west side of the river. Harch's group even commissioned a geotechnical firm to draw up a trail design through the rail corridor - which is now the same bridge-and-boardwalk blueprint that Dunsmuir officials plan to execute. The group also raised $170,000 to improve trail access at Hedge Creek Falls, a feature downstream of Mossbrae where the proposed trail to Mossbrae would begin.
In years of correspondence with the trail association, Union Pacific has generally supported the idea of creating a safer route to Mossbrae, Harch said, but the railroad hasn't committed to allowing hikers on its property.
"We've been at this close to 25 years and they (the landowners) have expressed interest all the way along, it just hasn't panned out to anything," Harch said.
Harch is skeptical that Union Pacific is sincere about assisting with a trail project. Even if the railroad agrees to allow public access near its tracks, he doubts a trail will be built.
"The project is so complicated and so expensive, with so many hurdles, that I don't think it'll ever happen," Harch said. "But it needs to happen because what we've got right now is a danger to the public."
Visitors from Trinity County, looks up at a rainbow at Mossbrae Falls along the Sacramento River outside Dunsmuir, Calif., on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 in Dunsmuir. The famously spectacular and highly controversial Mossbrae Falls up in the state's far north is finally going to get a hikers trail. (Obtained by/S.F. Chronicle)
This month will mark a long-awaited turning point at Mossbrae, Dunsmuir officials say.
With Thursday's vote, they'll soon apply for a Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements grant from the Federal Railroad Administration, confident that the long history of hazardous hiking and near misses on the train tracks will win the project its much-needed funding.
The proposed trail would begin at Hedge Creek Falls, where there's a small parking area and trailhead. Importantly, it would skirt Saint Germain's property on the east side of the river.
Constructing it will be a big task. Its design calls for an arch bridge to be installed over the Upper Sacramento River between Hedge Creek and the railroad side of the river. Hikers would then walk along a series of boardwalk platforms leading upriver to Mossbrae; those would need to be anchored to the hillside in a limited space above the river and below the train tracks.
"Even if we get this grant and the money it's not going to be built in a year," Lucchesi said at the city council meeting. "It's a very, very large project."
City officials say the estimated $26 million cost is an investment in Dunsmuir's future. Tourism has supplanted logging and railroading as the town's top industry, and a legal trail to Mossbrae could draw up to 200,000 visitors per year, according to city councilmember Matthew Bryan.
"This trail is budgeted at the highest end to build something that can handle this type of traffic," he said at Thursday's meeting.
An agreement with Union Pacific is the key needed to unlock the trail concept. Dunsmuir's city council has been in communication with the railroad and drafted a document, but it hasn't been finalized.
Lucchesi said it's time to move toward a solution.
"I couldn't begin to quantify what the trail is going to mean for this community," she said. "This is Dunsmuir's chance to reclaim the glory of what it once was."
