The McCloud River is a river that flows east of and parallel to the Sacramento River, long, in Siskiyou County and Shasta County in northern California in the United States. It drains a scenic mountainous area of the Cascade Range, especially Mt. Shasta. The river is north of Redding and is a tributary of the Sacramento River.HistoryThe river was originally known as the "McLeod River", after the Hudson's Bay Company hunter and trapper Alexander Roderick McLeod who explored it during the winter of 1829-1830. By the 1860s, the spelling "McCloud" was widely used, likely because that was the conventional American spelling of the Scottish name, and perhaps in part to honor California pioneer Ross McCloud, who settled here in 1855.Watershed and CourseThe McCloud River watershed drains 800sqmi. It rises from several spring-fed streams in Colby Meadows in the Cascades approximately 10mi southeast of Mount Shasta in Siskiyou County. It flows initially west, passing south of Mt. Shasta and receiving streams that drain the southern slope of the peak. From Mt. Shasta it flows generally southwest through Lake McCloud and through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. It joins Shasta Lake, formed by the Shasta Dam, approximately north of Redding, with the lower 10mi of the river forming the middle arm of the lake. The McCloud arm joins in at the Pit River Bridge on Interstate 5, north of the city of Shasta Lake.
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