Preston Peak is a dominant feature of the Siskiyou Wilderness

Siskiyou Wilderness

The Siskiyou Wilderness is a federal wilderness area designated by the passage of the California Wilderness Act of 1984. Originally, the land area was The Northern California Wild Heritage Act of 2006 added for the current total of . All of the wilderness is in Northern California and is managed...

. Many peaks in the wilderness rise to over 6,000 feet but none come to within 500 feet of approaching the height of Preston Peak. From the summit on a clear day the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 is visible along with peaks in the Klamath Mountains

Klamath Mountains

The Klamath Mountains, which include the Siskiyou, Marble, Scott, Trinity, Trinity Alps, Salmon, and northern Yolla-Bolly Mountains, are a rugged lightly populated mountain range in northwest California and southwest Oregon in the United States...

 and Cascade Range

Cascade Range

The Cascade Range is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades...

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John Hart, in his book Hiking the Bigfoot Country says of the peak:

"At a mile and some above sea level it is by no means the highest peak in the Klamath Mountains...Yet there is no mountain in northern California which I remember with more pleasure. They say that early travellers on the Klamath River, glimpsing the mountain above them, thought it was 10,000 feet tall."

The Forest Service designated the peak and watershed around the peak the Preston Peak Botanical and Geological Area because of the rare plants and associations of plants that can be found. Here the Alaska cedar and noble fir

Noble Fir

Abies procera, the Noble Fir, is a western North American fir, native to the Cascade Range and Coast Range mountains of extreme northwest California and western Oregon and Washington in the United States...

 reach the southern terminus of their range
and share habitat with the northwest California endemic Brewer spruce and Port Orford cedar. There is also an interesting population of high elevation Pacific yew on the peak that, along with a few other population in the Klamath Mountains, may justify reclassification as at least a subspecies.
A few other rare plants living on or around the peak are the phantom orchid and Siskiyou frittilary

Fritillaria glauca

Fritillaria glauca is a species of fritillary known by the common names Siskiyou fritillary and Siskiyou missionbells.It is native to northern California and southern Oregon, where it is found in the serpentine talus on the slopes of the local mountains.-Description:This uncommon wildflower grows a...

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