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Published: September 6th 2006
Lassen Peak from Manzanita Lake
Around noon: taken from near the entrance station01 - 04 September 2006(Labor Day weekend)
About Lassen National Park Itinerary: 09/01/2006 LEAVE HOME 07:30 PM. NIGHT HALT: CORNING REST AREA
09/02/2006 LEAVE 07:00 AM. BROKE OFF MOUNTAIN HIKE, CHECK IN CAMPSITE
09/03/2006 BUMPASS HELL HIKE, KINGS CREEK HIKE
09/04/2006 CHAOS CRAGS HIKE TO FROG LAKE, CHECK OUT, SUNDIAL BRIDGE, BACK HOME
Another weekend out of home :-)
Lassen was out and out Ganesh's choice.
Next to marrying me, that was the best decision he has made. :-) This time, we really wanted to have the camping feel. So, new try: Campfire.
Sept 01:
We started off Friday evening around 7:30 pm. As expected, we got caught in traffic.
It was midnight by the time we reached Corning Rest Area along I5. We had dinner below the sky and called it a night.
We slept in our car comfortably.
Sept 02:
We got up around 7:00 am to see that most people had already left. So, we got ready to leave to our destination: Lassen National Park.
We had a long day with a long hike ahead.
We reached the Broke off mountain trail head at around 8:30 am
Morning sun rays
so good to see this after a hearty idly breakfast. :-)
Having summited Lassen peak during our last visit, we were all set for this one. Should be easier than Lassen. So, I thought :-(
Poor, naive Meera!
The trail started climbing almost immediately. Sun was already high up and was doing its job scorching us . The trail was very fresh with lots of lakes and shrubs. If not for those, the hike would have seemed more strenuous.
Finally after 2.5 hours we were at the top looking at Lassen Peak (10,500 ft) & Mt.Shasta (14,000 ft) eye-to-eye.
The sight we saw was well worth the hike. There were a lot more clouds now, making it chilly at the 9500 ft mountain summit.
Broke off mountain was really a mountain that broke off from the huge Mt.Tehama(11,000 ft) that once existed. Rather, it’s one of the few parts of Mt.Tehama left.
After a good 45 minutes at the top, we started hiking down. Well! Coming down 2,600 ft was a lot of strain on our knees. We were more than happy to get down to the parking lot, even happier to see our car taking us to our campground. No more
Kings creek meadows
Ganesh loves meadows walk for the day. 7 strenuous miles RT to Broke off mountain was enough for the day.
All campgrounds were full by then. Even the walk-in ones. How much I thanked God for our reservation. I booked our site A02(Manzanita Lake Campground) only a fortnight back-well! Someone cancelled it out. Lucky or what!
We walked in to our site and realized how lucky we were. We had a driveway to our site. I was a little surprised to see bear proof containers. Bears? With so many people?
We fell in love with our site. Almost instantly.
We got settled in a while; and took that long awaited shower. Showers were 24 hrs and were crowded then around 6:00 pm.
We were so excited about setting up a campfire; It was easy enough! Just keep the wood and the starter and light it away to glory.
The fire was so much welcomed when it got more chilly. We were at 5,900 ft above sea level. Just hated to leave the fire and get into our sleeping bags.
It was so cold.
It was 10:00 pm. We decided to call it a night.
Sept 03:
Kings creek falls
So much water in September!! All the body pain from the previous day’s hike was gone in the morning. We were going to invite some more pain today.
Last evening, I came across this hike to “Bumpass Hell” in the campsite notice board.
The place to see thermal activity. Seemed interesting!
We passed the trail head several times earlier, but this time we were going to do it. It was an easy, short 1.5 mile hike to the thermal area. No wonder it is the busiest trail in the park. Just 500 ft elevation gain. The view was breathtaking. Hidden between those huge mountains were amazing red, orange, green colors of rocks. I remembered the yucky smell of hydrogen sulphide from Yellowstone.
We sat around to have our sandwich in the thermal area boardwalk. Hike back was even smooth. The park still had patches of snow here and there. No one could resist getting into the snow. We were no exception.
We were done with Bumpass Hell(Bumpass Hell was named after an early settler who severely burned a leg after falling into a boiling pool)
We were going to hike to the most popular Kings Creek Falls. 1.1 mile(one way) off the
road with a moderate 700 ft elevation change. The falls were amazing. Still flowing in September. I scrambled down to the base of the falls. Ganesh preferred to stay up.
It was such a beautiful place. Climbing up was a little difficult, but very doable.
Satisfied with the day’s activity, we headed back home to the shower. Managed to find a shower without waiting long. It seemed less chilly with the fire today. Hmm.. We stayed up late(until the fire went out) after dinner.
Sept 04:
Ganesh had this hike in mind: Chaos crags trail to Frog Lake. I got up at 7:00 am. It was too cold to bring down the tent and get ready. So, we planned to hike to the Lake and check out when it became much warmer.
We started from the trail head around 7:30 am. It was a moderate 2 mile(1 hr) hike up to the lake. It was a very beautiful setting. It is a crater below 2000 ft of rumbled chaos crags. Since we were early, we had the lake to ourselves.
Very satisfied that we had seen a lot of Lassen, we started climbing down. Surprisingly, coming down
I named this as reflection Lake
The first lake on the broke off mountain trail took the same 1 hr. Wonder why!
We came back to our site to see almost all people gone. We had to checkout by noon. So, we got down to business. Had lunch, packed and off!
We visited Loomis museum(why miss that too) and got a shot of Lassen’s reflection over Manzanita Lake. Now! That’s how “being satisfied” feels like.
The temperature began to rise up. By the time we were at Redding, it was 100F. There was no way I was going across the Sundial bridge. The place was liveable at midnight. Ganesh still wanted to go across. He came back unidentifiable. All dark. I had to run back to the car. The sun was burning me.
By the time we reached Sacramento, it became better(85F) around 6:00 pm. God! I love Bay area.
Reaching home 8:30 pm, I realized how tired and burnt out we were. At least a cool breeze welcomed us. The weather told us that we were home.
Back to the usual routine tomorrow. Unpacking, cooking, office, class, blah blah.
A good break!
Thanksgiving! 2 months away... :-(
Worth waiting for.
Doubt if we would ever
go back to Lassen / even the Cascade range.
Fun to live!
-Travelbuffs
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suchi
non-member comment
cool...
very nice pics meerakka...nature is so awesome out there...i feel bad stuck in singapore...should come there one day...thanks for sharing the pics :)