THE
MAIN EVENT
Sadly,
we had to break camp Sunday morning. We
had spent three pleasant nights at the Hole in the Ground campground, which was
probably our favorite campground on the entire trip. It’s a small quiet campground, and despite
only having 12-14 campsites, it never filled up that weekend. I guess it is just too far out of the way for
most people.
The
plan for Sunday was the hike up Lassen Peak.
The round trip hike is only 5 ˝ miles, but the
trail gains about 2,000’. We had brought
our ice axes all the way to California largely because the National Park Service
was recommending them for this hike.
They were still recommending them at the Visitors Center when we arrived
two days earlier. I was a little
skeptical, but since we had them, we decided to carry them.
We
made a couple of stops on the way to the trailhead. The parking area for the main trail to
Bumpass Hell provides some nice views. A
short distance beyond, the mostly frozen Helen Lake was irresistible. From there we continued up to the large parking
area at the Lassen Peak Trailhead. We
parked next to a large RV, as it offered a little bit of shade. The day was actually partly cloudy, which was
a novelty. The first week of our trip
had offered almost continuous blue skies.
That wasn’t ideal for photos, and I was hopeful that the clouds would
make for better conditions.
The
RV was full of rowdy snowboarders.
Apparently, they were planning to hike to the top and snowboard
down. They were doing some intense
pre-partying right there in the parking lot.
It was like a tailgate party.
They had hard rock blasting, and I’m pretty sure some of them were
drinking beer. One guy was a loud Australian
that was particularly entertaining. Some
clowns on motorcycles rolled into the parking lot blasting terrible country
music (pardon the redundancy). The
Australian walked around the RV and bellowed, “turn that shit off, you fucking
pussies!”. I decided right then that I
wanted to be his friend.
We
had a couple of false starts that morning, as I kept forgetting things. We eventually got going, and started the
hiked by climbing up the steep snow bank at the far end of the parking
lot. The lower part of the trail was
mostly snow-covered, but the route was packed down and obvious. Early on we were treated to views of Eagle
Peak and Brokeoff Mountain soaring above vast
snowfields and frozen tarns. We climbed
switchbacks through the snow, occasionally in the trees but mostly on open
slopes. As a result, we were treated to
nearly constant views throughout the hike.
The clouds were as fantastic as I’d hoped, and I took a lot of photos on
the way up. The trail also featured some
fascinating rock formations. It was a
very busy trail, as the snow wasn’t scaring many people away. That was ok though. It was such a spectacular day that Christy
and I didn’t mind sharing the experience with hundreds of other people.
We
were nearing the top when we reached the only sketchy spot. There was a snowfield crossing, with a long,
steep slope below. Fortunately, the path
was packed down and the snow was soft.
We crossed without unpacking the ice axes. On the return, we did use our Yaktrax for
extra traction, as the footing was worse heading downhill. Shortly after we crossed on our return, a
teenage girl fell on that crossing and slid 10-15’ down the slope before
sinking into the soft snow. There was a
lot of screaming and flailing, but luckily for her, the snow was soft enough
that it wasn’t truly dangerous. If she
had fallen there first thing that morning, when the snow was icy, she would’ve
gone for a long ride with an ugly ending.
From
there we climbed to a false summit. We
crossed another snowfield on the rim of Lassen’s crater as we approached the
rocky summit. The crater was a
spectacular mix of dark volcanic rock and pure snow. In the distance, Mount Shasta seemed to be
floating in mid-air.
The
final stretch required a steep climb on talus and scree. Despite the busy trail, there were only a few
people at the actual summit. We had a
late lunch there and enjoyed the spectacular views. The ascent had featured great views, mainly
to the south. From the top, we could see
in every direction. We still had great
clouds, so I took a lot of photos. A bit
later, the snowboarders arrived, and we watched them ride down into the
crater. Apparently
that is traditional, before beginning the descent.
We
took our time on the way down to spare Christy’s knees. Fortunately, it is a well-graded trail with
good footing. That helped a lot. We made it down late that afternoon. From there, we continued north and west
through the rest of the park. We stopped
at a couple of overlooks before reaching Manzanita Lake on the northwest side
of the park. I wanted to take photos of
Lassen Peak from Manzanita Lake at sunset, so we decided to get a spot at the
campground there. That would throw us
one day behind schedule, but I wasn’t too worried about it. We had some flexibility, and we were really
enjoying Lassen. Manzanita Lake is a
large, popular campground, but there were plenty of vacant spots on Sunday
evening. We took showers and got a few
things at the camp store before setting up at the first good spot we
found. We cooked and ate dinner, before
heading out for sunset.
I
wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted to be for sunset, and I didn’t have much
time to figure it out. Reflection Lake
and the northwest corner of Manzanita Lake looked promising. We found a spot on the shoulder of the road,
and tried Manzanita Lake. We walked
around the shore, and after only a few minutes we found a great spot with a
view of Lassen Peak directly across the water.
Sunset was spectacular that night.
First we were treated to alpenglow on Lassen
Peak. Then the surrounding clouds turned
pink and red. All of it was reflected in
the still waters of Manzanita Lake.
Back to California
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