Tehama County

In August, the City of Corning celebrates its principle agricultural product at the Corning Olive Festival. At the three day event, visitors can taste olives, participate in the Olive Drop, learn about olives at the Festival Mixer and cook up their favorite olive recipe at the highly competitive, Olive Festival Cook-off. Spectators can attend a classic car show, a volunteer firemen's muster, a parade, a beauty contest, cheer on their favorite team during the Corning Does it Bedder Bed Races and place a bet in the Cow Chip Bingo contest. Talent shows, dances, races, arts, crafts and continuous musical entertainment round out the weekend at this amazing small town festival.

The Annual Red Bluff Bull & Gelding Sale is the largest of its kind in the country. Over 1,600 animals are judged and sold during this five day event held each year in January, which attracts close to 5,000 cattlemen from all over the Western United States. The event includes competition for the Bar Eleven Champion Conformation Trophy presented to the top gelding or mule. Stock dog and stock horse and hakamore / snaffle bit competitions are held one morning before the sale of quarterhorses, mules and working cow dogs. The final event of the week is the Blood & Guts Bull Riding Challenge and Ranch Hand Bronc Riding. According to organizers, top cowboys go head to head with the rankest bucking bulls in Rodeo.

The Victorian Tour of Historic Red Bluff features more than a dozen examples of Victorian architecture. These beautifully preserved homes, all built between 1860 and the early 1900's, represent a variety of styles, and are decorated with every type of Victorian gingerbread. Included on the tour are a number of churches, and Victorian storefronts in the downtown area. The Kelly Griggs House Museum is an elegantly renovated Victorian which is open to the public, afternoons Thursday through Sunday . Visitors can walk through rooms decorated with antique furnishings and photographs of life in Tehama County at the turn of the century.

In early January, 310 California high school rodeo performers meet in Red Bluff for the State High School Rodeo Finals. The top five finalists from each district in California compete in nine events for the chance to progress to the Nationals. Rodeo enthusiasts from all over the state come to watch exceptional performances in traditional professional rodeo events such as bronc and bull riding, steer wrestling, barrel racing and cutting horse events. They also enjoy the special non-professional events including breakaway and goat tying. Many of these outstanding young people will go on to be college rodeo competitors, and a few of the best will become professionals. Over $10,000 in scholarships are awarded to the finalists.

Appreciate the beauty from your car window or take the time to hike to the many fascinating, peculiar and beautiful destinations. Stop at the Park entrance and pick up the Road Guide to Lassen National Park. As you tour the three sides of Lassen Peak, you can stop often at turn outs and overlooks to view the devastation area and the remarkable recovery since Mt. Lassen's eruption in 1917. Take the one and a half mile hike to the boiling mud pots of Bumpass Hell. See other geothermal areas including Boiling Springs Lake, Devil's Kitchen and the Sulfur Works. Enjoy the relatively easy two and a half mile hike to the summit of Lassen Peak. Try your skill at fishing the catch and release natural fishery of Manzanita Lake, or keep what you catch at Upper Hat Creek or Juniper and Butte Lakes. Camping areas are available throughout the Park. As one ranger said, "Lassen is very much what other National Parks were 25 years ago."

Learn about the daily life of early California pioneers at William B. Ide Adobe State Historic Park near Red Bluff. Interpretive programs at the State Park are designed to immerse visitors in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures of the 1850's. Participants are encouraged to attend activities in period costumes, such as the Life in the 1850's program and the Horseshoe Pitchers' Contest. At Adobe Day, on the third Saturday in August, hands-on activities including candlemaking and traditional woodworking are available and visitors are encouraged to taste freshly baked breads and jerky smoked in the adobe smokehouse on site. Pioneer Christmas Party recreates early Christmas traditions of the area, with a tree trimmed with fruits, nuts and popcorn strings. Activities include candlemaking, toy making, cookie baking and caroling.

The Western Open Fiddle Championships held in late October in Red Bluff, features some of the top fiddlers in the United States. Old time fiddle traditions are kept alive at events such as the Western Open. Children as young as three years old join with old timers in their 80's and 90's to learn, by ear, the old fiddle tunes that have been played for hundreds of years. Competition in the open classes is stiff, with expert fiddlers of all ages putting a new spin to old tunes, in hopes of winning one of the coveted trophies and the right to move on to the National Championships held yearly in Weiser, Idaho. Each night after the official competition is over, fiddlers gather around campers and RV's or in motel rooms to jam and learn from one another. Everyone is welcome to join these toe-tapping sessions, perhaps to play an accompanying gut bucket or spoons or just to listen and enjoy.

The South Shasta Model Railroad is a real railroad in miniature, built to a scale of one forth inch to the foot. The working museum features trains, track, buildings, bridges and actual terrain in replica of the Southern Pacific Railway which ran from Gerber to Dunsmuir. Rarely seen features include working fireboxes in the steam type locomotive, a mail catcher that actually catches mail, water plugs and towers, neon signs and a working sawmill. Creator, Godfrey Humann spent 29,000 hours over 48 years creating this spectacular display, which is the largest individual railroad layout in existence.

Students of all ages learn science in a 500 acre classroom at the Sacramento River Discovery Center. Day long programs for younger students include hands on experiences with aquatic animals, insects and environmental educational programs in the two acre native plant garden and the 60 acres of riparian habitat and oak woodland. Older students stay from three to five days at the overnight education camping facility, and participate in intensive watershed educational projects. Families are encouraged to visit the Center, and walk the interpretive trails in the 500 acre outdoor classroom, and work and play together at the interactive displays in the Visitors' Center.

Visit Lake Red Bluff, minutes from downtown for great fishing, picnicking, camping and boating. View salmon and trout making their way up fish ladders bypassing a diversionary dam. Spend time at the Sacramento River Discovery Center, a 500 acre exploratorium featuring interpretive trails through a variety of habitats, and hands on exhibits. Travel minutes north to the William B. Ide Adobe State Historic Park, where you can tour the home of the short lived California Republic's only president. Weekend afternoons throughout the summer, costumed docents demonstrate brick making, weaving and other daily chores of a homestead family of the late 1800's. Dine at one of Red Bluff's excellent riverside restaurants. Plan a guided fishing or a scenic view jet boat trip up the Sacramento River.

Red Bluff is the home of the Red Bluff Round Up held in late April. It is the largest rodeo in the west. Attend other events such as the California High School Rodeo Finals in June, the Bull and Gelding Sale in January and numerous horse shows scheduled for every month of the year. Visit one of Tehama's many working cattle ranches for spring branding and maybe receive an invitation for one of their great outdoor barbecues. Learn about Wolf Man, the finest bull in the history of bull riding, owned by Tehama rancher Don Kish. Wolf Man is responsible for the only 100 pt. ride in the history of the Pro Rodeo Cowboy's Association bull riding event.