On our last day of fun stuff on vacation, we drove from Redding to the north end of Lassen Volcanic National Park and went to the small museum and bookstore. I got my National Parks passport stamped and the weather was low 60’s and overcast, so a good day for hiking. We walked the Lily Pond Trail that started across the road. It’s an interpretive trail that winds around for a mile with markers to explain the trees and plants, which is good for me because I’m a flower person, not a tree person.
I liked this burned tree with a heart on it. Awww.
It was a nice, easy hike and we got back in the car to head off to the volcano when we saw auto tour markers. So we went back to the museum and bought an auto tour guide which turned out to be very informative and we learned a lot. I read the book as we stopped at the markers and there were some cool volcanic features that we saw along the way.
Eventually we decided that Scott would hike from Kings Creek to Cold Boiling Lake and on through to Bumpass Hell and meet me. I would drive around and park at the Bumpass Hell trailhead and hike in to the hot pot area. So we proceeded. I dropped him off and hiked in to the fumerole and hot pot area and he was not there. I was surprised because I took my time and actually started out a little ways and went back to the car for my hiking poles when I met a lady who said I would need them for the snow and ice covered portions of the trail. So I figured he would be in Bumpass Hell before me since he makes better time. I thought he was probably just out of the basin so I decided to hike on farther to meet him. A little way up out of the basin my phone rang and it was Scott. He was greatly delayed because we dropped him off at the wrong Kings Creek parking lot so he had to walk a mile and a half on the road to get to the trailhead. He got to the lake fine but the trail from the lake to Bumpass Hell turned out to be a two mile uphill rather than level. I had a snapped a picture of the trail map on his phone before we split up and he was pulling it out to check it when he saw he had service so he called me to say he was late. I was glad he was OK and waited at the top of a ridge for an hour for him to meet me and he was tired. Here’s what he saw on his solo hike.
We toured the basin fumeroles and hot pots then hiked back out of Bumpass Hell to the car.
I had hiked into Bumpass Hell near a French couple and they stopped to talk to me while I was sitting on the ridge. I told them about Scott and when they met up with him they told him I was waiting for him not far along the trail. While he was on his hike he passed a Chinese couple and asked them how far to Bumpass Hell. After we got in the car Scott wanted to show me where the trailhead actually was and where I’d left him, so we drove back down the road and passed them walking up the road toward the Bumpass Hell trailhead. The road is straight up and crosses the highest point in the park. After we turned around at the trailhead and got back on the road to Bumpass Hell, Scott said he felt sorry for them and we should pick them up because he would have been happy if someone had given him a ride when he was walking on the road. Plus they still had a really long way to go and it was all uphill. So we stopped, shoved all our junk in the back seat over to one side, and they squished into the back seat. We drove them back to the Bumpass Trailhead parking lot and they were very grateful.
We finished out the drive through the park and were craving a nice dinner before heading to the hotel in Reno, but the hiking took much longer than we’d planned and we weren’t finding a decent sized town. So time and place caused us to grab food at a little Wal-Mart in Susanville and push on to Reno.
Day 19 was a long drive home on I-80 across the desert to get to our little mountain home. Great trip overall and we had tons of fun together!
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