On the last weekend in July, Jeff and I went backpacking in Lassen Volcanic National Park. It was a good trip (much better than our last few), but the adventure started early this time.
I had planned everything carefully in advance; we had our wilderness permit and everything ready to go. But at the last moment, Jeff wasn't sure he could get the time off after all. This was doubly frustrating because the reason he couldn't have the time off was the same reason he needed some time away from work. It was rather poetically ironic, but irony isn't much comfort. He did end up getting a half-day off on Friday and a full day on Monday, which was enough; we didn't have to cancel the trip.
So Thursday evening we packed the car, Friday morning I drove him to the train station, and at about noon he caught a train to meet me at work in the early afternoon. Of course we had forgotten something at home, but that was just a brief stop and then we were on our way.
On I-505 (between I-80 and I-5 west of Sacramento), we saw a minivan stopped on the side of the road, with people standing behind it waving their arms at the oncoming cars. We stopped; it turned out they needed a wrench because their passenger-side front tire had more or less exploded, and they needed to put on the spare tire. They had a wrench, but it was old, and one of its corners was split so that the socket wouldn't quite grasp the nuts. Our wrench was unfortunately too small. After substantial non-progress with the old broken wrench, Jeff hopped the barbed wire and went to knock at some nearby farmhouses to see if anyone there could help. This produced a nice ex-Navy chap named Billy with a lot of tattoos, a truck, and a rugged T-wrench! Jeff and myself now having served our purpose, we got on the road again.
The rest of the drive to Lassen was uneventful. Due to our late start and delay on the road, we ate dinner on the road and arrived at Summit Lake South Campground at about 9pm. (It was not even quite dark yet.) Happily, I had reserved a campsite online, so all we had to do was find our spot and set up the tent. Squatters had their stuff at the site we got there (a big group had overflowed from a nearby campsite after the campground host told them they had too many people for one site), but they left politely when Jeff told them we had the site reserved. Apparently they had entered from the other side and hadn't seen the signpost.
The inside of the tent's rain fly was a bit sticky, probably from being slightly damp when I put it up the last time. That was in September 2007 at Waves to Wine; the fly got very damp on the inside that night, and I waited until 11am for it to dry in the sun. I am annoyed that the drying apparently still wasn't successful, even after that wait. On the other hand, the fly did dry over this weekend and is no longer sticky, so I'll hope for the best.
Saturday morning we packed up and drove to the trailhead. There we had some small fuss about food, since there were no bear lockers, we didn't want to leave anything in the car and also didn't want to carry anything more with us than we had to; in the end we ate an applesauce cup and decided that my slightly-dirty Tupperware from Friday lunch was probably not a great temptation to a bear.
We hit the trail at about 9:30, but I had to turn back a little ways in to go back for my hiking poles, which I had left leaning against the car. (That was the worst but not the last time I tried to leave my poles behind on this trip.) Despite that small setback, we made good time. The morning was very pleasant and cool, although the skies were a bit hazy. The skies at Lassen are normally very clear, but the visibility wasn't good on Saturday morning. The lakes, on the other hand, were quite clear, and the scenery was still excellent.
Next to Summit Lake, I found a charming butterfly on a tree.
The first lake on the trail proper was Echo Lake, less than two miles in. It's a pretty little lake and very popular (and therefore closed to camping!). We were unfortunately joined by a group with noisy kids at about the time we reached the lake, but we largely avoided them by the following the trail on around the lake until we could barely hear them, before we stopped for lunch and took some more pretty photos.
After Echo Lake came Upper Twin Lake, and then Lower Twin Lake quite soon afterward. The lakes were nice, but please forgive me if I didn't take many photos of the lakes. I find that lakes are nice to be around, but in photos it can be hard to tell them all apart.
As we left Lower Twin Lake, our trail joined onto the Pacific Crest Trail, which we followed southward for a few miles, up a ridge and past Swan Lake. (I said But no ballet.
Jeff made some quip about toe-stands in hiking boots, and my calves winced involuntarily.) After a few miles on the PCT, we turned off toward Horseshoe Lake, which we hit after nearly nine miles of hiking.
To camp, we headed all the way to the far end of the lake, where there's a ranger cabin. The ranger wasn't there when we arrived at about 4:30, and we started to set up close to the cabin. When the ranger arrived a couple of hours later, he kicked us out and showed us where we were supposed to camp. That was actually a much nicer spot, with more privacy and closer to the lake as well.
I was pretty wiped, so Jeff did most of the work. We turned in fairly early (as always on hikes) but didn't sleep terribly well because animal noises kept waking me up (and I woke Jeff up). At first I couldn't figure out what it was, and I was terrified that it might be a cougar or a bear near our campsite. Finally the creature came close enough to make out its shape in the flashlight beam; it was just a deer although much larger than Jeff or I had ever seen. It looked the size of a small pony!
Jeff had set the cookpot in its bag at the edge of the campsite, and at one point we heard it crash loudly, followed by hooves bounding away. He got up to look and found the bag fifteen feet from its original position and slobbery on top. He moved it to just a few feet away from the tent, and it wasn't disturbed again.
It got very cold that night at about 4am, and then it started getting really light again about 6am, when I woke up. I thought about getting up, but it was still quite cold, and I just wasn't that motivated. At about 7am I was woken up again by a bunch of raucous birds, which I thought were geese and the ranger later said were sandhill cranes. Unfortunately I didn't see them; they must have been flying overhead or else at the lake, beyond the trees.
By that time the temperature had warmed up a lot, so I got up and kicked Jeff out of bed as well. We managed to get on the trail at 10:15; we were slowed by chitchat with the ranger and by having to filter several liters of water by hand. The skies Sunday morning were clear again (blown clean by winds on Saturday, I think), and the lake was glorious.
The rest of the hike was hot, only half-shaded, and mostly motivated by getting off the trail again. There were more stream crossings than I would have liked, mostly small. The largest, over Kings Creek, we bridged via a log. The log itself was pretty steady, but I was wobblier than I would have liked. In retrospect, I should have just swapped my boots for boat shoes and waded.
No new lakes on Sunday, but we did see a pretty waterfall.
The trail landed us back at Summit Creek South, where we had another reservation for Sunday night. We dropped our packs at the campsite, and I stayed behind while Jeff walked on to the parking lot to get the car. Thank goodness for husbands.
Surprisingly enough, we felt well enough the next day to take a little day-hike to Bumpass Hell on our way out of the park. That was pretty awesome, and Jeff was blown away. (Check out his photos of Bumpass Hell.) We tried to get some video too, but that didn't work; I'm not sure why.
Driving back along highway 36, we reached Red Bluff at lunchtime and noticed a storefront sign labeled 2 Buds BBQ & Beans.
We decided to take a chance on 2 Buds and were glad we did; it's one of those local joints with no pretensions whatsoever, just good folk and good food. I had a pulled pork sandwich with a side of beans; Jeff had a tri-tip sandwich with the same. It was all excellent and hit the spot perfectly. I highly recommend 2 Buds if you're driving along I-5 in Northern California; you can find them on the south side of Highway 36/99 just before the highways split. Their hours appear to be 11am-6pm Monday-Saturday. Just don't expect to find much vegetarian fare; even the beans had a substantial (and tasty!) proportion of meat.
Flickr photo set for this hike: Horseshoe Lake and Bumpass Hell - Jul 2008.