Lassen Volcanic National Park, Pt. 4

More Lassen.


For the most part, we didn't see much wildlife besides a squirrels, a couple snakes, and some deer. There were lots of insects though, and this butterfly was pretty common. Looks like a California tortoiseshell.


There were a lot of dragonflies near the lakes. Somehow, I was able to get a photo of one in flight. Not sure what species it is, but through some brief interweb research, my best guess is that it's a blue-eyed darner.


We ran into some interesting terrain the second day. The ground transitioned from brown dirt to black cinder, the trees turned from alive to burnt and dead, and the scrub all but disappeared. You can see Eric near the bottom right corner - it provides some perspective of the size of the trees.


Trail signage on a partially charred tree.


Yellow brittlebush barely growing in the dirt and cinder. A tough little plant, you often find this growing where nothing else can.


Eric and I approaching the Cinder Cone, which we later climbed. A great view but we were totally exposed to the sun at this point. It was damn hot. We drank about five liters of water that day and it still wasn't enough. I think I pissed smoke later that night.


Taking a break while climbing up the Cinder Cone. It really wasn't that high up, and the heat, dust, and 35 pound packs on our backs were fine. It was the loose gravel and cinder that was frustrating. Since it gave way with every step, we lost ground as we gained ground. It was one of those things where you keep your head down, try to think about something else, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Next post, top of the Cinder Cone.

Lassen Volcanic National Park, Pt. 3

The first day was a nice easy hike. Most of it was through alpine terrain. The trail, although well maintained, was incredibly dusty. That wasn't much of surprise but at the end of each day, the skin of my legs were caked in dust despite wearing pants.


Many of the pine trees had crazy neon greenish yellow lichen (it wasn't moss) growing all over them.


It's wolf lichen, which is mildly poisonous. Don't eat it.


Rainbow Lake. This is where we set up camp for the day and we had the whole lake to ourselves. After a long summer day of hiking, there is nothing better than jumping into a cold mountain lake.


The lake supposedly had rainbow trout in them so Eric decided to give it a go.


He fished around the whole lake and caught nothing. We decided the lake had no trout. Yeah, that's the ticket.


Really the only thing we found in the water were garter snakes.

Lassen Volcanic National Park, Pt. 2

Eric hiking on the trail. This was about two miles out of the Summit Lake campsite. It was your basic alpine terrain, totally dominated by sparse conifers and scrub. Although the days started off cool, it warmed up quickly. The lack of shade made it a bit hot, but thankfully there was virtually no humidity (as expected) and so it was usually comfortable enough. This type of terrain constituted about 50% of our hike.


There really wasn't all that much wildlife. However, the first couple miles of our hike had literally hordes of these guys. They look like chipmunks, but after looking at some of my photos I realized that they were the ubiquitous golden-mantled ground squirrel. Anyway, they were scampering all over the place, but strangely enough, they slowly disappeared as we moved through the park. I really don't remember seeing any others after the first day.


After four or five miles, we ran into our first lake, Echo Lake. It was relatively small and not all that interesting or significant (except for the fact that it was the first lake we hiked by), but the cool breeze sweeping in over the lake was appreciated.


Since it was towards the end of the summer and the area was experiencing a drought, many bodies of water were smaller than usual, or even entirely dry. This appeared to be a shallow area of Upper Twin Lake that had dried up and was cut off from the remainder of the lake. I went out to take a look since I was curious about the little tufts of grass...


After walking around the dried up lakebed, I saw what I thought to be crickets jumping around my feet. I looked down only to see tiny frogs frantically jumping out of the path of my clumsy feet. There were dozens of them within arm's length. I think they are Pacific Tree Frogs, which I've seen in Oregon - but my knowledge on amphibians is somewhat lacking so I can't be sure.


These guys were tiny. Those are dried up pine needles towards the front of the picture.

More to come...

Lassen Volcanic National Park, Pt. 1

Eric and I went to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Perfect weather, minimal bugs, lots of water, great scenery, and my bro. It was pretty much the Cadillac of hiking.


Eric packing up at Summit Lake in the early morning. We went to a drive up site to get ready for the morning. It was pretty crowded so we couldn't wait to get going.


Soon after setting out, we were greeted by a great view of Lassen Peak.

Much more to come.

Home

Just got back from vacation. Backpacking was outstanding and "Lodi Rules."

I have quite the handful of photos to sort through and will post some soon. Until then, some old randoms:


Grabbed this outside of Silver City in the UP. Funny, I always thought the end would be a little more glorious.


There is a morbidly delicious quality to this photo of Mom's smoked chicken.