2003/10 Lassen Peak trip - Chaos Crags |
|||
I’d decided to spend the next few days at Lassen Volcanic Park up in the Cascade Mountains, about 160 miles north of Reno. Most of the way there was in desert, with dry lake beds and cactus. I needed to buy food for the trip, but left it to the last minute so that it would last longer in the heat. As it turned out, there is only one real town anyway, Susanville in California. What looked like a town on the map, Hallelujah Junction (yes, that’s really the name!), turned out to be a gas station and tiny store in a shed.
From Susanville on, I was in the mountains, with Lassen Peak dominating the horizon. Once I got to the park I realized that the campground was at the other end of the park road, so I skipped all the stops and views, until I got to Manzanita Lake and claimed a campsite. Not that space was likely to be a problem on a Thursday, but the campground did fill up the next day.
The site had giant ponderosa pines and manzanita shrubs. Manzanita looks all gnarled and twisted like bonsai plants, and it’s very hard wood, hard enough for the pioneers to use its twigs as nails. When hiking in manzanita, you stay on the trails as bushwhacking is impossible.
Each campsite had its own bear-proof container, a big metal box with a bear-proof lock, 
similar to those we have up north in Minnesota parks. They are great in a cold climate but they’re definitely not great forkeeping milk and butter cool in California temperatures!
I’d had enough driving for one day so I took off hiking from the campground up through the forest to Chaos Crags. A volcanic eruption and earthquake caused an avalanche about 300 years ago and that wiped out hundreds of acres of forest, known today as the Chaos 
Jumbles. It’s an amazing sight, a field of rocks with 
just a few trees growing. I climbed up to the start of the avalanche. There’s a pond there,probably a lake in the spring. Now it was almost dry, but still a focal point for the local bird life. From there it was a quick hike back in the twilight with the temperature dropping fast.