Mary and I decided to go backpacking with our friend Alta for the three day weekend. After a little research we decided to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park since the weather looked nice and it’s less crowded than Yosemite or Sequoia. I picked up Hiking Lassen Volcanic National Park from our favorite hiking guide publisher, Falcon Guides. From the book, we settled on a combination of different hikes to fill up 3 days. We started at Summit Lake trail head and camped in the same location both nights (Rainbow Lake). Here’s the lowdown:

Day 1: July 4, 2008 (7.5 miles)

Alta met us at the house early on Independence Day. We were on the road a little after 7am. It’s a 4-5 hour drive and we were hoping to be on the trail before noon. Fortunately the traffic was light. We got the the park before noon, so we were on schedule. We needed to pick up a wilderness permit, and were told we could get one at the Summit Lake Ranger Station. Unfortunately that station was closed, so we had to drive out to the Loomis Museum to get one. We didn’t get on the trail until almost 1:30.

Most of the days hike followed the north branch of the Cluster Lakes Loop. From the trail head we crossed a few meadows and passed Summit Lake. There a great views of Lassen Peak over Summit Lake. After the lake the trail started to climb. The ground was mostly covered with some sort of manzanita. There are even more amazing views of Lassen Peak from the trail. A little less than a mile after Summit Lake we reached the junction to Cluster Lakes. After a bit of up and down along the trail, we reached an unnamed lake and stopped for lunch (picture on left) around 2:45pm. I decided to call this lake “Lunch” Lake. We saw a lot of bluet damselflies buzzing around the lake. They are a really pretty blue.

From ‘Lunch’ Lake it was mostly downhill to the Cluster Lakes. First up came Little Bear Lake followed closely by Big Bear Lake. After about 3.2 miles since the Cluster Lakes junction, we reached a junction with the trail to Badger Flat, but continued along to Silver Lake. We hiked along Silver Lake for a while then came to Feather Lake where we stopped to admire the view (picture on right). The ground cover along this part of the trail tended towards lupine rather than manzanita. About 2.8 miles after the Badger Flat junction, we merged on the a short portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. We were starting to get bothered by mosquitoes as we hiked along a creek leading to Lower Twin Lake. We passed another junction on the north side of Lower Twin Lakes and turned off the PCT a little later when we reached the trail to Rainbow Lake.

It was about a half mile from Lower Twin Lake to Rainbow Lake. We hiked along Rainbow Lake looking for a nice place to set up camp. We found a pretty good spot on the east side of the lake and had camp (picture on left) set up by about 6:30pm. You can see the top of Lassen Peak across the lake to the west. For dinner, Mary and I shared a bag of Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai. It tasted pretty good, but some of the noodles didn’t cook all that well. We got to try our our new GSI Hae Tea Kettle to boil the water. It works really well. Much faster and more convenient than the pot we used before. A little after 8pm, the mosquitoes were getting annoying, so we retired to our tent. This was the first time I used my new Mountain Hardware Phantom +32 Sleeping Bag. It packs so small and weighs only 24 ounces (for the long), but it kept me plenty warm.

The rest of the pictures for Day 1 are in the gallery. For a map of the complete trip check out the Google Map I created.

To be continued…