We left our house, which we LOVE, at 8:15am and drove to the Manzanita entrance (NW corner). From there we followed the park road 25 miles (ish) down to the Bumpass Hell trailhead. Along the way it was crazy to see how much of this park has been burned. Last year the Dixie fire consumed 60% of the park and the fire we saw was an intentional controlled burn set prior to the Dixie fire. Had the park service not issued the controlled burn, the entire park would have burned up. This whole area appears to be in a sad, severe drought.
We hiked the Bumpass Hell trail back to bubbling mud pits,
sulfur vents, etc. It was way cool and
it stank.
From that hike we doubled back to the Kings Creek Falls picnic area and ate our staple trail meal (pepperoni, cream cheese & crackers) then kept driving to the Kings Creek Falls trailhead. This trail meandered through a lot of the controlled burn area so it lacked shade for much of it (and it’s pretty hot outside). The falls themselves were underwhelming compared to the picture but we were able to cool off in the stream – get our feet it, dip our bandanas in, etc. and the water was COLD.
The big joke so far on this trip is that Grant, who usually
is in the lead on a hike, will say hello to someone coming the opposite
direction and if they say hi back, he does a fist bump with a knee raise
because I guess on the first day, no one would say hi back.
From Kings Creek Falls, we continued back to the Manzanita
visitor center and got the hat pins, magnets and passbook stamps.
And I ADOPED A PIKA!
I’d said the day before that they only thing that would make this trip
perfect would be to see an elusive pika, which I’ve been talking about ever
since we went to Rocky Mts NP (I haven’t seen one since I was 16). The ranger said the best chance to see one
would be at the top of Mt Lassen so now I’m totally excited to hike that trail.
We walked down to Manzanita Lake but opted against doing the
entire loop because we got plenty of hiking in already.
Then we drove into the town of Shingletown for ice cream at
Scoops, served by a crazy stoned lady who told the kids she’s from Humble
County, where the very best weed is grown.
We went into The Man Cave next door to Scoops, a strange store that a very old man owns. He makes all the signs in the store. We saw an interesting one on the fence outside the store.
We then ran into the Chevron station for a lighter and fire
starters then got back to the house around 4 or 5.
Ryan texted Ben and Grant and I played Yatzee. We had frozen
pizzas and salad for dinner, watch a slightly good movie on Netflix called The
Adam Project and then sat by the fire circle.
Grant had either 7 or 8 s’mores.
Ryan got into a football conversation with Ben (who plays football for
Jesuit) and confessed she knows very little about the sport so Grant agreed to
teach her the game. This was followed by
a lengthy discussion between Grant, Ryan (Ben) and myself about the proper way
to cook a marsh mellow. Ryan and I are
in the golden-brown camp. Grant is in
the “totally on fire” camp. Ben agreed
with Grant (they’ve never met) so now Grant thinks Ben’s an ok guy which I
think means a lot to Ben, who’s been trying to earn Grant’s respect 😊
(BTW, Grant and Ben have been on one lunch date and none of us have met him
yet!)
In bed, crashing at 10pm!
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