Recently in Lassen Category
We headed up to just outside of Lassen National Park for a weekend of snowcamping with friends. It's been such a bad year for snow, I can't believe it took us until mid-February for a real snowcamping trip!
It was only 1.5 miles into the lake. The lake has cabins for summer use, but we roughed it in our tents on the beautiful lakeshore. The snow was shallow enough that we could collect some wood and keep a fire going at night. Between the fire and the bright sun during the day we stayed pretty warm! There was a nice waterfall about .3 miles from camp, so we took a short dayhike to explore the area. What a strenuous and tough weekend! Ha!
Pictures here: McGowan Lake
Since both of our employers were kind enough to give us July 3rd off in addition to Independence Day, David and I headed up to Northern California for a four-day weekend of caving and hiking. The crowds were sparse thanks to the mid-week holiday, and we were able to enjoy exploring some new caves as well as some old favorites in Lava Beds. We finished the long weekend off with a hike up Loomis Peak (thanks for the info, mtnsteve!) and some geocaching in the national forest west of Lassen National Park. For more details, see the extended entry. For the photos, click on the image of the lily or here:Lava Beds and Loomis Peak.
After an entire season of bad weather snowcamping, we finally got out on the snow this weekend when the sun was shining. Mtnsteve organized a Full Moon trip in Lassen through TrailTalk/Nothern CA hikers. He had a perfect campsite picked out on a ridge rising out of the Devastated Area and up toward Lassen Peak. I haven't enjoyed views like that from camp in a long time. The sun was shining so bright most of us walked out of there with some part of our bodies burned, but this trip more than made up for the bad weather this season has thrown at us. Well, maybe it still owes us a few nice days for that Winnemucca fiasco back in December...
The moon was shining so bright that I swear some of my sunburn is really moonburn. It lit up the area so bright that I barely needed my headlamp, even when digging through my pack for something at 11 pm. All in all, a successful trip - great weather, great people, great views, great food.
Click on the photo above for our photos from the trip. Or, click here: Lassen Snowcamping.
Maria has also posted some wonderful photos here and here.
Mtnsteve's photos are here.
This past weekend David and I did an overnight snowshoe/ski into Lassen National Park with the Northern California Hikers. It was wonderfully hot and sunny on the snow, and sunscreen and hats didn't do much to prevent sunburn. But it was worth it! We snowshoed in a few miles along the road to the Bumpass Hell parking area (in the summer) and set up camp. It was a windy night but we had a great time. I'm looking foward to the next one! Pictures are here.
