I slept a bit more the second night than I did the first, but I still tossed and turned a lot. There was a lone frog croaking most of the night, only occasionally joined by the full chorus. Time to get on with our final day of the trip…

Day 3: July 6, 2008 (5.5 miles)

Today I was out of the tent before 7am. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more sleep, but I just couldn’t get comfortable any more. We had another breakfast of oatmeal, but this time with some instant milk tea from Burma and a little turkey jerky from Trader Joe’s. After a leisurely breakfast, breaking camp and packing our backpacks, we were on our way by 10am.

The first part of the hike had tons of lupine (picture on right). It’s a pretty short trip back to Lower Twin Lake (elev. 6,534 ft.), only about half a mile once we left Rainbow Lake. Lower Twin is at least twice the size of Rainbow Lake, but still much smaller than Snag Lake. We hiked around the south side of Lower Twin, then it’s a really short jaunt to Upper Twin Lake (pictured left). Upper Twin (elev. 6,543 ft.) is a bit smaller than Lower Twin. The trail follows the north shore of the lake. I could see a few geese and ducks out on the lake, but they were too far for decent photos.

After we left Upper Twin, we started to climb towards Echo Lake. It’s about 1.5 miles and 300 ft. of elevation, so not too bad. Along the way we spotted a deer (right) having a late breakfast. We also passed a couple of unnamed lakes and even a few patches of snow in the shade of the forest. The ground cover was transitioning back to manzanita instead of lupine.

We reached Echo Lake (elev. 6,845 ft.) around 11:30am. Echo Lake (pictured left) is even smaller than Rainbow Lake, but it’s still very pretty. This would have been a nice place to stop for lunch, but we were hoping to visit some other areas of the park before our drive home, so we pushed on. From Echo Lake we climbed to the trail junction to the Cluster Lakes on a ridge at 7,136 ft. From here it’s all down hill to Summit Lake.

The hike down from the ridge has some great views of Lassen Peak to the west. To the right is a picture of Mary with the peak in the background. There are a couple other pictures of the peak in the July 6 gallery. Shortly after 12:30pm we reached Summit Lake at 6,676 ft. (pictured left with Lassen Peak in the background). We saw a few other backpackers cooling of by swimming in the lake. The water looked very inviting, but we just wanted to get back to the car. We had about half a mile back to the trail head along the lake and through some meadows. We crossed the final boardwalk to the parking lot at 12:50pm. It felt good to get out of the backpacks, but a shower would have to wait until we got home. After pulling out the food we wanted for lunch, we packed all the backpacks in the back of Mary’s Prius and hit the road.

Our first stop along the park road was the gift/snack shop at the Lassen Peak trail head. Mary picked up a Popsicle and I got an ice cold Gatorade. Next stop was the picnic area at Lake Helen for lunch. Lake Helen is a beautiful lake at the southern base of Lassen Peak (pictured left). While eating our lunch at one of the tables near the lake we had a visit from a very brave golden-mantled ground squirrel (right). We also saw a chipmunk, but is was quickly chased away by the squirrel.

By this time it was nearly 2pm. We were planning to go to Bumpass Hell, but decided it was getting late. Instead we figured we would stop at the Sulphur Works to at least see some of the parks geothermal features. When we passed the parking area for Bumpass Hell and saw how crowded it was, our decision was affirmed. Sadly, when we arrived at Sulphur Works we discovered the interpretive trail around the geothermal area was closed. We were able to see a fumarole near the road (left with Mary) but not much else.

We stopped at the park’s main entrance sign for a photo-op on the way out (right). Overall it was a great backpacking trip. In 3 days we covered a little over 22 miles. We hiked by 14 different lakes and climbed a 360 year old cinder cone. We saw deer, snakes, squirrels, chipmunks, woodpeckers, geese, ducks, damselflies and a variety of other insects. I would definitely recommend this hike, especially the Cluster Lakes loop covering our first day from Summit Lake to Lower Twin Lake via the Cluster Lakes and the last day from Lower Twin Lake to Summit Lake via Echo Lake. That would be a great one night trip. The Cinder Cone can also be visited via a short day hike from Butte Lake. It might also be nice to camp at Snag Lake sometime. I’m sure there will be another backpacking trip in Lassen Volcanic National Park in our future.

See more pictures from day 3 in the July 6, 2008 gallery. All pictures from the trip are accessible from the Lassen July 2008 gallery. Once again, check out the Google Map I made which shows our route and various points of interest. You can click on the blue icons on the map to see a picture of the indicated point of interest. You can also click on the 3 trail segments to get more info on each leg of our trip. You can also click the small screen capture of the map on the left. I would have embedded the actual Google Map on this page, but all the JavaScript made my blog a bit too slow. Enjoy!

There were no fireworks the previous night, even though it was Independence Day. There were various bird sounds and eventually a nice chorus of frogs from the near by Rainbow Lake. Unfortunately I tossed and turned most of the night, unable to stay comfortable for very long. I have a sleeping pad that’s pretty good, but inevitably something would start to ache after a while and I’d have to try a different position. The air cooled to the mid-40’s during the night, but I was plenty warm with my sleeping bag over me like a blanket. Mary ended up zipping hers up all the way and even cinched it around her face during the night for full mummy-mode.

Day 2: July 5, 2008 (9.5 miles)

I could tell the sun was up, but I remained in the tent for quite a while hoping to catch a few more moments of sleep. Eventually I gave up and got up. It was around 8am when I rolled out of the tent. Rainbow Lake was absolutely calm, a perfect mirror (picture on left). It was beautiful.

We heated up some water to make oatmeal and instant Vietnamese coffee for breakfast. Our kitchen (on right) consisted of our small gas stove surrounded by a few rocks, a Platypus collapsible water tank, our bear cannister and a burned out log for a bench. Alta joined us having her own oatmeal but forgoing the Peet’s coffee she brought along. After breakfast, we got ready for our day hike to the Cinder Cone and Snag Lake. Mary and I packed a bit of food and water in my backpack and she carried the camera bag and binoculars.

We were on our way by 9:30am. We had to backtrack along the lake a few hundred yards to a junction we had passed the previous night. The hike started out in forest similar to the previous day, but as we got farther along we could tell we were getting closer to the Cinder Cone. The forest floor transitioned from sand to cinder. Eventually the trees were nearly gone and we were walking in a vast expanse of cinder with the Cinder Cone rising in the distance (picture left). The cinder field to the southwest of the cone is huge, dotted with small patches of grass and a few flowers. The southeast is dominated by the Painted Dunes and Fantastic Lava Beds.

The Cinder Cone is a 700-foot foot high volcanic cone of loose scoria (a type of volcanic rock). According the the USGS, the Cinder Cone was formed around 1650. A spur trail branches off from the Butte Lake trail and follows the south base of the cone through the Painted Dunes. The trail to the rim is pretty steep and made more difficult because of all the loose scoria (picture on right). Fortunately this part of the trail is not all that long. It was one of the few times where I could see what I thought was a false summit that turned out to actually be the top. I was pretty thankful for that.

We reached the top of the Cinder Cone around 11:15am. I snapped a quick picture of Mary near one of the few trees around the rim (picture on left) before setting of to explore the rim. There’s actually a double rim around the middle of the cone with the outside rim higher than the inside rim. The entire circumference of the rim is about half a mile.

There are some great views from the rim though it was very hazy the day we were there due to the various fires around California. Even so we could see the Painted Dunes, Fantastic Lava Beds and Snag Lake (pictured on right) as well as Butte Lake to the northeast and Lassen Peak in the distance to the southwest. After exploring the rim we stopped for lunch around noon at the tree pictured previously. Mary and I ate some bread, salami and string cheese while enjoying a cool breeze and awesome vistas. I only wish the air had been clear for even better views. See below for a panoramic view of the Cinder Cone rim.

After a short lunch break we headed off again. We hiked/slid our way down the scoria and back across the spur trail along the Painted Dunes. The trail from the Cinder Cone to Snag Lake follows the edge of the Fantastic Lava Beds for nearly 2 miles. During this portion of the hike I was starting to feel the effects from the heat and dry air. Mary and I had brought less than 3 liters of water between the two of us, and neglected to bring the water filter with us. The filter would have been handy when we reached Snag Lake (pictured left). The north shore of Snag Lake is the Fantastic Lava Beds. I suspect the lava beds have something to do with the size of this lake, the largest we encountered on our hike. It has some nice sandy beaches and tons of great camp areas. This would be a great destination in itself.

After a snack break at Snag Lake, we headed off for the final leg of our hike. By now it was about 1pm we only had 2.5 miles left to go. My only concern was whether or not we had enough water. Most of this section of the trail was through forest and fields of lupine (left). It was pretty nice except for the steep climb out of the Snag Lake basin. We already had a pretty long hike, so this last section went slowly. Mary and I ran out of water, but we were pretty close to camp by then. We got back to camp at about 3:30.

One of the first things we did when we got back to camp was filter more water (right). The lake was chilly, but it felt really good to soak our feet and wash off some of the dirt from the day’s hike. We spent a good hour just relaxing by the lake. While we were at the lake we were visited by a 2 or 3 foot garter snake. It was nice enough to pose for me (picture on left). There were a few damsel flies about and some other large black insects I could not identify. They didn’t seem to bite, but they sure liked to land on us.

For dinner Mary and I tried a different brand of dehydrated food packets. These were from Mary Janes Farm. I had jambalaya and Mary had wild forest mushroom couscous. They were both pretty good. After dinner I did some exploring near the lake. I managed to find some woodpeckers and enjoyed some more views at the lake. Other than a few mosquitoes, Mary and I were pretty happy campers (picture on right). We headed into the tent a little early this night to avoid the mosquitoes. This seemed like a better option than spraying ourselves with toxic chemicals. Besides, with the sun going down and no fires allowed,there wasn’t much else to do. So we just lay in the tent talking as the sun went down and the chorus of frogs eventually helped us drift off to sleep.

See more pictures in the July 5, 2008 gallery and don’t forget to check out the Google Map showing our trail and many points of interest.

To be continued…

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…

Last week Mary and I went to downtown San Jose to walk around Christmas in the Park (see above). They have a lot of the same decorations each year, but the trees are all different. It was pretty chilly so we both really enjoyed a Mexican hot chocolate. It’s kind of like hot horchata with chocolate in it. It’s pretty yummy. For more pictures see Christmas in the Park 2007.

The rest of last week was rather uneventful. I went up to Berkeley nearly every day to work with Nate since he’s heading out of town for the holidays. I did have lunch with Ron and Steve in Mountain View on Wednesday. After lunch Ron and I went to Tide House to check out some Yuletide brew. THey don’t seem to make it anymore. I tried their current holiday brew, but it wasn’t very good. Saturday was pretty normal. I played basketball and Mary hiked Mission.

On Sunday, Mary and I went to Pinnacles National Monument. We hiked a loop starting at the Bear Gulch Visitor Center which included Condor Gulch Trail, High Peaks Trail (Steep and Narrow section), Rim Trail, Bear Gulch Cave Trail, Moses Spring Trail and Bear Gulch Trail. The total loop is about 6.1 miles. We saw a couple condors in the distance while hiking up the Condor Gulch Trail. We stopped for lunch on the Steep and Narrow section of the High Peaks Trail. While we were there, we had a really nice fly-by from a condor. For more pictures, see the Pinnacles and Condor galleries.

On Monday, Christmas Eve, Mary and I took a drive up to Berkeley. I needed to get a PC from the office so we decided to make a day of it. We planned to eat at a New Orleans restaurant there, but it was closed. We ended up at I. B.’s Cheesesteak. After lunch we walked along a street fair on Telegraph Ave. After our walk, we hit Cafe Strada for some coffee, then headed out. Before driving home we stopped in Emeryville to look for Espie, one of the falcons born in San Jose this past spring. She had been spotted there for the last couple weeks. We managed to find her and had a nice visit. More pictures in San Jose Peregrines 2007. We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner at Mary’s parents.

For Christmas Day we went looking for falcons in San Jose. We tried a couple new locations, such as the Five Wounds Church. We didn’t find any falcons, but we did see a nice red-tailed hawk on top of the church (picture left). After striking out downtown, we headed to Don Edwards. We were checking out a burrowing owl when a large bird flew by. We’re pretty sure it was a golden eagle, but I didn’t manage to get a picture. The park gate was closed, so we walked out and around the boardwalk. We saw a white-tailed kite at the bend in the road and a black-tailed jackrabbit along the boardwalk. Now we’re ready for a nice, quiet dinner at home.

Happy Holidays!

Mary and I wanted to go to Death Valley National Park for the long Thanksgiving weekend, but we were having trouble finding a place to stay. We were even starting to consider camping. Then we thought if we were going to camp, we might as well go somewhere new where we would have to camp. We started thinking about Mojave National Preserve. We had driven through there many years ago, but never really spent any time there. The problem was, it gets really cold at night, and the forecast called for below freezing. Brrrrr. In the end, Mary managed to find a room at Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, so that’s where we went.

Thursday, November 22 (Thanksgiving Day)

We had a bit of a slow start in the morning (as usual) and didn’t manage to get on the road until around 11 AM. We had stopped for a few supplies (including ever important coffee and donuts) then hit the road for our nearly 500 mile. We took US101 south and cut across CA152 to the east. As expected, we hit some traffic here, so I made a couple holiday calls to family. We finally hit I-5 and headed south on the most boring stretch of the drive (and stinky too, especially near Coalinga). The donuts and coffee had worn off by the time we hit the cutoff for CA46, so we pulled into the only place around, a gas station with a Subway sign. The subway was closed for the holiday, but they did have a few pre-made sandwiches. We got a couple, one of which was turkey. We were afraid it may be our only turkey of the day since we didn’t think we’d make it in to the park before the few restaurants closed. We took 46 to 99 to 56 to 14 (so many numbers!). By now we had rounded the southern end of the Sierras and we heading north. Up 14 to US395 then 190 in to the park. We made it to Stovepipe Wells in time to have a nice turkey dinner with pumpkin pie! We got to the Furnace Creek Ranch after 10 PM.

Friday, November 23

On Friday we decided to explore a new area of the park. We headed south on Badwater Road through the heart of the valley to hike Sidewinder Canyon. We read about this hike in Hiking California’s Desert Parks. One of the main attractions to this hike was the mention of bighorn sheep. We looked for them every time we went to the park, but had never seen one. Following the directions to the trailhead, we missed the dirt road since my odometer seemed to be off by 2 miles compared to the book. After backtracking, we managed to find it easily enough (it’s pretty much the only road out there). There are a bunch of canyons in this area, so it took a little time to find the right one. We hiked all the way up a short but steep one before we realized we wanted the next canyon over. It is definitely bighorn sheep country, there are droppings all over the place. A few minutes up the canyon, we saw a bighorn up above us on the north canyon wall. Damn, we had just been up there a little while ago after following the previous canyon to its end. Oh well, it was pretty cool seeing the bighorn. The canyon is pretty cool. There are a few narrow, twisted areas and quite a few slot canyons along the side. We hiked up to the end and also explored one of the slot canyons. On the way out, we saw two more sheep on the canyon wall, this time a bit closer. For more pictures from this hike, check out my Sidewinder Canyon and Bighorn Sheep galleries.

Saturday, November 24

For today we planned to explore another new area of the park. We drove up the Emigrant Canyon Road to Wildrose to see the Charcoal Kilns and hike Hummingbird Canyon. The Charcoal Kilns are pretty cool (see picture near the top of this post). They were built in 1877 to make charcoal which was used for smelting. They are about 25′ tall with a 30′ circumference. They were only used for about a year, so they are still in good shape. After checking out the kilns, we set off to find the Hummingbird Canyon trail. After searching for a while, we found the dirt road to the trail head, but decided the road was too rough, so we headed back to the valley to see the sand dunes. On the way back to the valley, we stopped for a picture of my Escape on Emigrant Valley Road (see left). For more pictures, check the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns gallery.

The sand dunes are one of our favorite features in Death Valley. There are a few different sets of dunes, but we went to the easiest to access, the ones on Mesquite Flat near Stovepipe Wells. These dunes start not far off the road and the tallest dune is about 2 miles out. We hiked around the dunes looking for wildlife, but saw only tracks of birds, rodents, insects and possibly canines. The various patters in the sand re really cool, both the small ripples and the large dunes themselves. We sat on the dunes for a while, watching the sun set and the moon rise. There were some people doing some sort of strange photo shoot a couple dunes over. Something to do with a long red cloth, purple wings and no clothing. For more pictures from the dunes, check out the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes gallery.

Sunday, November 25

For our last day we decided to do one of our favorite hikes, Mosaic Canyon. But first we decided to check out a feature we had not visited before, the Devil’s Cornfield. The “corn stalks” of the Devil’s Cornfield are really stacks of arroweed. The weeds grow in a sandy area near the sand dunes on Mesquite Flat. Some of the weeds grow on mounds of sand, and their roots go deep searching for water. Sometimes the wind blows the sand away, and a section of the roots are exposed leaving tall stacks. There were tons of animal tracks around this area, and many holes that I guess housed kangaroo rats and other small critters. Unfortunately we didn’t see any. Check the Devil’s Cornfield gallery for more pictures.

The hike up Mosaic Canyon was quite nice. It’s a really great hike through a diverse canyon. In some areas it’s really wide with golden walls. In others it’s a narrow channel of polished rock. And of course there are sections with various colored stones embedded in the canyon wall, creating the mosaics it is named for. We stopped for lunch in the widest part of the canyon, enjoying the cool but sunny weather. After lunch we hiked up to a dry fall that we couldn’t climb. It seems like there might be a way around it, but we never seem to leave time to explore further. We still had a long drive ahead of us. We really like the narrow chutes in this canyon; they’re as smooth as marble. There are more shots in the Mosaic Canyon gallery.

After a quick stop at the store at Stovepipe Wells to stock up on caffeine, we hit the road for the long drive home. Driving home on I-5 on the Sunday after Thankgiving is not the smartest thing to do. We were in hours of bumper to bumper traffic. We had done the same thing last year so we brought a few books on CD to take our mind off the traffic. It was well worth it to spend a four-day weekend in one of the great National Parks in California.