The roads less traveled - and Volcanic fun

The night before we left Yosemite, snow was in the forecast. Unbeknownst to us, CalTrans had shut down route 120 - our path from west to east and into 395 to head north to Lassen Volcanic National Park. With no cell signal, we drove merrily toward 120 east, only to find a road closure sign and a nice parking lot to u-turn the YOFOHome. So, we headed out on 120 west, a scenic and roller coastery sort of road that got us to more twisty turns roads. Our plans of making Lassen in one shot dashed (not exactly), we headed for Lake Tahoe on an audible. Aside from a few sketchy icy/snowy sections going over a pass or three, the drive was gorgeous.

We found a campground in South Lake Tahoe, dropped the YOFOHome off, and headed out to explore the western side of the lake. Jaw dropping scenery near Emerald Bay and the brief chaos of watching recovery ops for a driver who decided his car could float. And, we found a bakery that made some amazing loaves of bread! Nom nom nom! The next morning we dealt with some errands in Carson City (tires and laundry and food) and headed up to a Forest Service Campground on the Little Truckee River. Perfect staging base to explore the Donner Pass area (yes, those Donners) and the tunnels with their graffiti. This time, we knew that the highway through Lassen was closed and opted to drive to the Visitor Center in the southwest corner and hope that the road would soon be open.

When we arrived, the staff was helpful and we were able to camp in the parking lot. Turned out to be ideal for our visit - we hiked a loop directly from the Visitor Center and saw most of the highlights around that section of the park - the Mill Creek Falls were nice, the Crumbaugh and Cold Boiling Lakes were small refuges, and the hike into Bumpass Hell (not making that up) from the backside gave lots of long range views and scenic overlooks. We saw bear tracks and a buck eating his way across a high clearing. Rather than backtrack, we opted to hike down the scenic drive road and realized that the road wasn't going to open the next day - there was still snow and ice in sections and a lot of “falling rocks” had fallen and were still falling onto the road. The next morning we slept in and gen hiked to the top of Brokeoff Mountain. While we originally had wanted/planned to do Lassen Peak - the idea of walking about seven miles back up the road to start the hike was unappealing. Brokeoff Mountain gave us great views to Mount Shasta and Lassen Peaks as well as to some of the other Tehama Volcano bits that remained. And, we saw a coyote who circled us for a few minutes - we were hiking up next to a stream with surrounding meadows and he/she covered about 120 degrees of a circle following roughly along a contour line higher than us. Saw a few red tailed hawks playing on thermals near the peak as well.

One of these two isn't (but probably should say "is") color blind. Lassen Peak from Brokeoff Mountain

With the road still closed, we decided to jump that afternoon - had been planning on a shorter drive to Lava Beds National Monument, but the eastward detour gave us a chance to visit McArthur-Burney Falls State Park. Their waterfall met/exceeded expectations- it is a bit crazy because it is fed from an underground water source that pops to the surface at a Headwaters Pool about three quarters of a mile upstream from the falls. Very scenic and some well maintained trails that we ran on in the morning.

We saw a Modoc Scenic Byway on the map and thought we would take that up to Lava Beds. Well, no service and bad resolution paper maps meant that we missed a key turnoff. Turned out for the best though - apparently a major section is unpaved. That would not have been fun; the paved parts were mountainous and had some ice and snow left over. Probably “cost” us an extra hour of driving, but more scenery and Mount Shasta were the reward.

Lava Beds is interesting - curious mix of cinder cones, old lava flows, Volcanic rocks, and lava tube caves (over 500), plus there's some Army-Native American battle history and an associated WWII Segregation (Internment is apparently the wrong legal term) Camp at the town. Fascinating place that we didn't spend enough time visiting (that can be said of about every place we've stopped). The call of the Redwoods was too loud to ignore though and we left a moonscape-ish place in the middle of migratory bird habitat to head toward the coast and tall, tall, tall trees.

Fire lookout on top of a volcanic cinder cone. What could go wrong? And yes, of course we hiked up it.