Volcanic Adventures

The purpose of our visit to Ashland Oregon was to hopefully catch a Shakespeare play there. Ashland is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and though it was not that time of year, the city regularly puts on shows year round. The previous night while eating dinner at Standing Stone, Katie had noticed a ticket stub on the table next to us. I picked it up to discover that it was from a showing of Hamlet from earlier that day. We were both excited that it seemed our plan would be working out so well. In the morning, we headed into a local Starbucks hoping to utilize the internet to secure tickets for a show. Much to our dismay we found out that there were no Shakespeare play on Wednesdays. There was a few modern plays but Katie and I had never heard of them and didn't feel like wasting 60 bucks to find out whether or not they were any good. Ultimately we decided to rethink our plan for the day. After consulting our Atlas and

our many guidebooks we decided that the best plan of action was to head to Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California. This was just a few hours drive from Ashland and we figured we could easily waste a day there. We were wrong. We could have easily wasted a week there! The national monument was chalk full of lava tube caves like the one that we hiked at Mt. St. Helen. There are more than 700 caves in the

national monument and more being discovered everyday. Regrettably we only had one afternoon to spend there so we could not explore nearly as many caves as we would have liked. We went to the visitor center to get a trail guide and began our exploring. Because of our time constriction and lack of gear, we decided to stick to the easier hikes. We did a short cave near the visitor center that actually had lights and interpretive

signs throughout the cave, then moved on to the only cave in the area which still has ice in it. Apparently the indians utilized this water source and air conditioning unit to survive in the harsh desert above the caves. In the early years when the caves were first discovered, there were ice patches big enough that the people used to create skating rings out of them. Now, in the only cave with ice remaining, you can only view it through metal bars designed to keep people from

walking on the sparse ice that remains. After the ice cave we decided to do 2 caves that were nearby which had indian pictographs inside it. These were both very shallow caves, more like craters in the earth than actual caves. The signs told us that the indians used these caves as destinations for vision quests and the

pictographs were the embodiment of their lucid visions. We sat in these sacred areas for a bit, pondering the minds of the artists and trying to decipher their visions. It was a mile above ground each way to reach these caves and by the time we got back to the car we both were ready to hit the road. The other caves that we were skilled / prepared for did not interest us enough to go exploring in and we didn't want to waste another day to explore the more adventurous ones; deciding instead to

leave them for another time. After we left the national monument, we took winding back roads through the country

watching the scenery change from barren desert back into wooded forest, all while fleeting daylight gave way to prevailing dusk. As we entered the Mt. Shasta national forest area, while perched on a mountain ridge, we looked into the valley to see what appeared to be a dense fog. But this did not make sense; it was evening. Surely any fog that developed during the night would be long gone and it was too early any to have develop yet this night. Katie had recalled signs for a scheduled burning which I had apparently missed and we assumed that this must be smoke from that. Our road led us into the valley and we would soon find out the cause of the smoke. As we drove the smoke stood before us like a sheer cliff wall and as we passed

into it we were greeted by an erie scene. The smoke intensified the darkness and created a haze that was visible far into the woods. Up ahead we could see glowing embers on half devoured trees and then actual fires still burning in piles on the forest floor. I stopped the car for a moment to let the atmosphere sink in, the brooding stillness only broken by the faint crackle of fire. We were only able to endure this

atmosphere for a short time before we were both sure that something horrible was lurking in the forest watching us and felt we had to get out of there. We left the desolation of Smaug behind us and entered again into the now welcoming dusk. We drove for a bit before before bedding down at a rest area for the night, the gloomy sense of foreboding finally gone from our minds. The next day we were on to another National Park. Keeping with the volcanic theme of the area, it was Lassen Volcanic National Park next on our list. We arrived early afternoon to the visitor center where we got our trusty information about the sights to see as well as trail recommendations. I must say that the national parks system really has their stuff together in this regard. Every park we have visited has been extremely helpful in providing this type of information in an organized and easy to follow manner. We have almost always followed the recommendations of the rangers and information pamphlets and have not, as of yet, been led astray. Anyway, after acquiring our information we had a full day planned: 5 scenic stops, 2 hikes both 3 miles long, and a .75 mile interpretive trail explaining more about the volcanic history of the area. We pulled off regularly enjoying the sights, mostly views of the mountain and crater from where it exploded. At the interpretive trail we passed by fields of huge boulders that had been hurled during the blast as well as giant "hot rocks" which exploded from the mountains core and were reportedly hot for weeks after the blast. Our first hike that we had planned for the day was at Kings Creek and followed a river through a meadow then down a long cascade of seemingly endless waterfalls. We walked through the meadows and reached what appeared to be the more difficult section of the trail, which we assumed followed the waterfalls, only to find it blocked off by yellow caution tape. We both figured that something was wrong with the trail and conceded to taking the longer, less scenic, horse trail down to the bottom of the valley. Once we reached the river we discovered nothing but disappointment; there was almost no visible waterfalls. In the fall, the snow fed rivers usually lose their impressiveness or vanish altogether, but as we saw plenty of running water in the meadows above and knew this was not the case with this river. We reached the bottom of the more challenging route and again found it taped off down here as well. Just beyond the tape was a downed tree that barred the path but we could easily walk

around it. Throwing caution to the wind, we ducked under the tape and began to hike up the trail. Immediately our defiance was rewarded and we walked right up to the beautiful cascade of waterfalls. We enjoyed the view on a large rock for a bit, then continued the hike to the top, the

entire path following this majestic scene to its source. It was great and we were both extremely happy we didn't take the horse path back to the top. Just as we reached the top we heard someone blowing a bear whistle non-stop. Katie was particularly disgusted at this. We had always laughed at people when we heard them blowing whistles or ringing with bear bells at their side, even before we visited Alaska and had so many run-ins with bears. Now the idea seemed ridiculous and completely disrupted the serenity of nature which was the whole point in taking hikes like this. Once we were finally out of earshot of the whistle blower and we had reached the meadow portion of the hike again, we heard another person making a barking noise which we assumed was to ward off bears too. Katie was beside herself. We continued on a bit until I glimpsed who was making the noise through the trees. It was a couple of park construction workers, their gaze focused on the field before us. I told Katie to quite down, she had begun to make mocking barking noises herself, and we stood still trying to see what they were looking at. Soon the construction workers were aware of us and yelled at us to hurry forward; there was a bear just in front of us. Katie and I ran quickly into the clearing to see a big California brown bear 30 ft.

in front of us. We were both really excited to see a bear as we hadn't seen one since we entered back into the lower 48. We watched the bear drink from the river and run through the meadow for about 10 minutes before he ran out of sight. The construction workers stayed around to talk to us as we reached the street and told us that if you bark like a dog, bears will usually stand up and look at you, which is what they were trying to get this one to do. Thrilled about our luck, we continued on the road to our next hike. This hike was called Bumpass Hell and was named after a guide with the unfortunate fate of having the last name of Bumpass who had discovered the location. The destination of the hike was a large geothermal area with hot

springs, fumaroles, and boiling mud pots very reminiscent of the Yellowstone geothermal features. The "hell" part of the Bumpass Hell trail name is derived from the fact that the guide fell into one

of these boiling mud pots, covering his leg in 350 degree mud which resulted in him ultimately losing the leg. Luckily for us the area is much more tame nowadays and comes equipped with a boardwalk to navigate the dangerous parts. After this hike we left the national park and drove toward Sacramento to find another rest area for the night before heading back to San Francisco in the morning.