Mountaintop adventures
October 24, 2020
Bumpass Hell forms the largest geothermal area in Lassen Volcanic National Park. The thermal features sit just southeast of Lake Helen, via a short, flat trail. But I decided to access the very popular (and crowded) area via a longer hike with more vertical, from Cold Boiling Lake.
Continue reading “Bumpass Hell via Cold Boiling Lake”
October 24, 2020
California lays claim to nine national parks, as of 2021—more than any other state. Some parks attract millions of annual visitors: Yosemite and Joshua Tree clocked 4.4mn and 3.0mn visitors, as of 2019. Luckily for NorCal adventurers, Lassen Volcanic flies comparatively under the radar. The park has seen just over half a million visitors, annually, over the past few years.
Continue reading “Cinder Cone Nature Trail (Lassen NP)”
September 4, 2020
The day began well before dawn at the South Sister trailhead. It’s always smart to start a hike as early as feasible. But today this was doubly the case since it was Labor Day weekend and the forecast called for soaring temps by midday. Sure enough the parking lot was already starting to fill around 4:30 am.
Continue reading “South Sister”
September 1, 2020
I met my guide just before dawn for our ascent of Three Fingered Jack: a craggy, prominent remnant of a shield Volcano in central Oregon. This would be, far and away, my most technical rock ascent. As such, we had met the day before at Smith Rock to tune up my climbing skills.
Continue reading “Three Fingered Jack”
August 23, 2020, Sun Notch Trailhead
I spent a day last August exploring Crater Lake National Park en route to Bend Oregon. After a sunrise hike to Garfield Peak, I began a drive along East Rim Drive. A recent spate of wildfires had left the lake quite smokey, and sightlines would continue to deteriorate into midday. Beyond this COVID-19 had dashed any plans of taking a boat tour around the lake. But some other short hikes were still on the docket, including this little gem!
Continue reading “Sun Notch Trail towards Phantom Ship (Crater Lake NP)”
Aug 23, 2020, Rim Village
I arrived just before sunset to Rim Village, having driven that day north from the Bay Area. The summer and Fall of 2020 will forever be known for two things on the West Coast: COVID and fires. Evidence of the latter hung in the air over Crater Lake, which seemed visibly thick with smoke. I felt as though I were standing on the edge of a massive cauldron.
Continue reading “Garfield Peak (Crater Lake NP)”
June 20, 2020, Lassen Peak Trailhead
I began the day an hour southeast of Lassen National Park, in the town of Red Bluff. The road to the park undulated through the rolling foothills of the northernmost expanse of California’s Central Valley. Through the haze, I could see the Cascades rising to the north and east ahead of me. First, Shasta came into view, still covered in snow along its uppermost flanks. Then Brokeoff and Lassen Peaks rose over the landscape, dead-ahead, both silhouettes against the morning sun.
Continue reading “Lassen Peak: an entry-level Cascade volcano”
August 14, 2018, Paradise WA
In summer 2018 I signed up for a guided mountaineering seminar on Mt Rainier, in the gorgeous Cascade Range in Washington. My first trip to Washington, four years earlier, was to visit a friend getting her Ph.D. from U Washington in nearby Seattle. While roaming around town, I caught my first glance of Rainier, towering over the landscape. It was unlike any mountain I had seen before, clearly taller and more isolated than anything in the Rockies, let alone the Northeast. I asked my friend if we could hike it. She looked at me like I had three heads and said “What?! No! You need to like, train for that. And acclimate. It’s like a real mountain.” I decided then and there that the next time I was in Washington, I was climbing Mt Rainier.
August 12, 2018, Ashford Washington
In the summer of 2018, I ventured to the Pacific Northwest to take part in a guided climb of Mt Rainier. The day before the program began, another participant and I decided to stretch our legs, post-travel, with a quick day hike. The folks at the motel we were staying at had an unsurprisingly excellent knowledge of the region and its hikes. They warned us to avoid Rainier National Park, down the road. They predicted an hour-plus line on this sunny Saturday afternoon in August—just to get through the gates! Instead, they wrote down a list of turns to take via dirt logging roads to a nearby hike outside the park. The hike was known as High Rock. For anyone without the inside scoop, Google Maps can get you there just fine.