Highway 36: Fortuna to Red Bluff

Highway 36 is the long way across the mountains, about 135 miles of two-lane from US 101 at Alton, near Fortuna, to Red Bluff in the Sacramento Valley. It's driven coast to valley here, the way most people meet it.

The first stretch runs east through Hydesville and Carlotta and then follows the Van Duzen River all the way to Bridgeville, past Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park, a redwood forest on the river that the park calls full of big trees and few people. After Bridgeville the road climbs ridge after ridge, curving past Mount McClellan through Dinsmore and into the Trinity National Forest. It crosses the Mad River at the town of Mad River, passes Forest Glen and the south end of Highway 3, then heads east through Wildwood and Platina.

Past Platina the road leaves the forest, enters Tehama County past Rosewood, and drops toward the valley, coming into Red Bluff as Beegum Road and ending on Main Street downtown.