Day 47 - McCloud to Westwood, California - 155 Miles

Today I was all ready to be unenthused about the drive. It appeared that, as we approached our home base after a month and a half on the road, our options for routes to take to Carson City were few. Yesterday afternoon we left Interstate 5 in northern California, stopped off in McCloud, California to shop for groceries and do some photography. Then, when we realized that it was too late to reach Susanville at any reasonable hour, we decided to stay in McCloud at a very lovely camp west of the main highway.

But today it looked like we had to just get on with it, drive to Susanville, then tomorrow it would be at most a three-hour drive for home. We've been the McCloud to Susanville route countless times, and there's just not that much we haven't seen at this point between the two towns.

Resigned to our fate, we took off from the McCloud and headed east south east about 9:00 a.m. Our Route was California 89 and it was pleasant enough. There was not much traffic, only the occasional logging truck, and enough turn-outs for me to let any speed demons go by who were in tremendous hurry for some unknown reason.

It's always very soothing rolling mile after mile through groves of tall pines. That combined with the book we were listening to on the disk player made the morning go by rather quickly. But it wasn't until we had to make a turn from Route 89 onto Route 44 which headed toward Susanville that I got an idea. We had stopped at the intersection turn-out for a potty break and while glancing at the map I noticed that if we stayed on Route 89 it would take us right through Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Looking closely at the map I could see that going through the park instead of going to Susanville would add no negligible number of miles to our drive for the day. AND, we would be experiencing a spot on the map that we had never experienced before. That sounded like a win/win to me. I told Concetta about my idea, and stressed that we'd still get home roughly at the same time. She agreed that it sounded good.

So we turned around, took the Route 89 branch, and headed in a counter-intuitive southwest direction. But very soon we reached the turnoff for the park where Route 89 separated from route 44 west. Moments later we were pulling up the park gate. Thankfully, once again, we had our senior pass so instead of paying the going rate of $25.00 for two people, we got in for free.

Ladies and gentlemen, we were about to have our socks knocked off! Driving into the park we almost immediately came to the park office and museum property. There, the Park Service had thoughtfully provided us (and others) with ample space in which to park an RV. We pulled right in, selected a semi-level spot, and turned off the engine. Grabbing our gear we headed for the museum.

Once again we were oh so pleasantly surprise to see what a nice job the Park Service had done with their small, but effective museum. Combined with their twenty-minute movie explaining the park's evolution through time, the museum's displays were very fine and succinct enough to allow us to see it all. Just in case I didn't remember some of what I read I was also able to photograph the display explanations. Here's what I learned in using Wikipedia as my narrator:

"Native Americans have inhabited the area since long before white settlers first saw Lassen. The natives knew that the peak was full of fire and water and thought it would one day blow itself apart."

"White immigrants in the mid-19th century used Lassen Peak as a landmark on their trek to the fertile Sacramento Valley. One of the guides to these immigrants was a Danish blacksmith named Peter Lassen, who settled in Northern California in the 1830s. Lassen Peak was named after him. Nobles Emigrant Trail was later cut through the park area and passed Cinder Cone and the Fantastic Lava Beds."

"Inconsistent newspaper accounts reported by witnesses from 1850 to 1851 described seeing "fire thrown to a terrible height" and "burning lava running down the sides" in the area of Cinder Cone. As late as 1859, a witness reported seeing fire in the sky from a distance, attributing it to an eruption. Early geologists and volcanologists who studied the Cinder Cone concluded the last eruption occurred between 1675 and 1700."

"After the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) began reassessing the potential risk of other active volcanic areas in the Cascade Range. Further study of Cinder Cone estimated the last eruption occurred between 1630 and 1670. Recent tree-ring analysis has placed the date at 1666. The Lassen area was first protected by being designated as the Lassen Peak Forest Preserve. Lassen Peak and Cinder Cone were later declared as U.S. National Monuments in May 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt."

"Starting in May 1914 and lasting until 1921, a series of minor to major eruptions occurred on Lassen. These events created a new crater, and released lava and a great deal of ash. Fortunately, because of warnings, no one was killed, but several houses along area creeks were destroyed. Because of the eruptive activity, which continued through 1917, and the area's stark volcanic beauty, Lassen Peak, Cinder Cone and the area surrounding were declared a National Park on August 9, 1916."

"The 29-mile (47 km) Main Park Road was constructed between 1925 and 1931, just 10 years after Lassen Peak erupted. Near Lassen Peak the road reaches 8,512 feet (2,594 m), making it the highest road in the Cascade Mountains. It is not unusual for 40 ft (12 m) of snow to accumulate on the road near Lake Helen and for patches of snow to last into July."

"In October 1972, a portion of the park was designated as Lassen Volcanic Wilderness by the US Congress (Public Law 92-511). The National Park Service seeks to manage the wilderness in keeping with the Wilderness Act of 1964, with minimal developed facilities, signage, and trails. The management plan of 2003 adds that, 'The wilderness experience offers a moderate to high degree of challenge and adventure.'"

"In 1974, the National Park Service took the advice of the USGS and closed the visitor center and accommodations at Manzanita Lake. The Survey stated that these buildings would be in the way of a rockslide from Chaos Crags if an earthquake or eruption occurred in the area.[8] An aging seismograph station remains. However, a campground, store, and museum dedicated to Benjamin F. Loomis stands near Manzanita Lake, welcoming visitors who enter the park from the northwest entrance."

"After the Mount St. Helens eruption, the USGS intensified its monitoring of active and potentially active volcanoes in the Cascade Range. Monitoring of the Lassen area includes periodic measurements of ground deformation and volcanic-gas emissions and continuous transmission of data from a local network of nine seismometers to USGS offices in Menlo Park, California. Should indications of a significant increase in volcanic activity be detected, the USGS will immediately deploy scientists and specially designed portable monitoring instruments to evaluate the threat. In addition, the National Park Service (NPS) has developed an emergency response plan that would be activated to protect the public in the event of an impending eruption."

"The park is located near the northern end of the Sacramento Valley. The western part of the park features great lava pinnacles (huge mountains created by lava flows), jagged craters, and steaming sulfur vents. It is cut by glaciated canyons and is dotted and threaded by lakes and rushing clear streams."

"The eastern part of the park is a vast lava plateau more than one mile (1.6 km) above sea level. Here, small cinder cones are found. (Fairfield Peak, Hat Mountain, and Crater Butte).[14] Forested with pine and fir, this area is studded with small lakes, but it boasts few streams. Warner Valley, marking the southern edge of the Lassen Plateau, features hot spring areas (Boiling Springs Lake, Devils Kitchen, and Terminal Geyser).[14] This forested, steep valley also has large meadows that have wildflowers in spring."

Lassen Peak is made of dacite,[15] an igneous rock, and is one of the world's largest plug dome volcanoes. It is also the southernmost non-extinct volcano of the Cascade Range (specifically, the Shasta Cascade part of the range). 10,457-foot (3,187 m) tall volcano sits on the north-east flank of the remains of Mount Tehama, a stratovolcano that was a thousand feet (305 m) higher than Lassen and 11 to 15 miles (18 to 24 km) wide at its base. After emptying its throat and partially doing the same to its magma chamber in a series of eruptions, Tehama either collapsed into itself and formed a two-mile (3.2 km) wide caldera in the late Pleistocene or was simply eroded away with the help of acidic vapors that loosened and broke the rock, which was later"

"On the other side of the present caldera is Brokeoff Mountain (9,235 feet or 2,815 m), which is an erosional remnant of Mount Tehama and the second highest peak in the park. Mount Conrad, Mount Diller, and Pilot Pinnacle are also remnant peaks around the caldera."

"Sulphur Works is a geothermal area in between Lassen Peak and Brokeoff Mountain that is thought to mark an area near the center of Tehama's now-gone cone. Other geothermal areas in the caldera are Little Hot Springs Valley, Diamond Point (an old lava conduit), and Bumpass Hell (see Geothermal areas in Lassen Volcanic National Park)."

"The magma that fuels the volcanoes in the park is derived from subduction off the coast of Northern California. Cinder Cone and the Fantastic Lava Beds, located about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Lassen Peak, is a cinder cone volcano and associated lava flow field that last erupted about 1650. It created a series of basaltic andesite to andesite lava flows known as the Fantastic Lava Beds.

"There are four shield volcanoes in the park; Mount Harkness (southwest corner of the park), Red Mountain (at south-central boundary), Prospect Peak (in northeast corner), and Raker Peak (north of Lassen Peak). All of these volcanoes are 7,000–8,400 feet (2,133–2,560 m) above sea level and each is topped by a cinder cone volcano."

"During ice ages, glaciers have modified and helped to erode the older volcanoes in the park. The center of snow accumulation and therefore ice radiation was Lassen Peak, Red Mountain, and Raker Peak. These volcanoes thus show more glacial scarring than other volcanoes in the park. Despite not having any glaciers currently, Lassen Peak does have 14 permanent snowfields."

We had such a nice spot in the parking area of the museum that we just stayed there when it was time for lunch. We did coast the rig backwards one space as it was more level than ours and the former occupant had since departed. But the setting was so lovely that we didn't even mind the traffic kept up a steady pace into and out of the lot.

After lunch we knew we had to make some miles so we decided to just roll through the park and out the south end. Someday soon, we decided, we had to come back when we could perhaps spend a day and do some hiking. The setting just makes you want to get out of your vehicle and hit the trial.

This mindset lasted only a few minutes. Soon we came a parking area that occupied the part of the park they referred to as the "devastated area." This particular area was created in May of 1915 when Mt. Lassen blew its top, caused all the snow to melt suddenly, and the area was completed inundated with mud and debris. All the vegetation was simply washed away or covered in feet of mud.

Concetta suggested at this point that we do some hiking, but we soon decided that we just had to get down the road so that we would be able to get home fairly early tomorrow. But the Park just has that effect on a person. It calls to you, makes you want to pull on your hiking boots, head off down the trail.

But in the end we just drove, made a few miles, and saw some truly memorable country. The road towards the south end of the park is truly not for the faint of heart, especially if you are driving a large RV or suffer from acrophobia. We did stop near the top of the 8,500 pass to take some photos, but for the most part we rolled past all the beautiful lakes, dazzling geology, and the acres of yellow-flowered mules ears plants on our way down to the park's south entrance. One more stop as we exited the park gate netted us a fine photo of both of us next to the sign.

The last part of the trip was toward the town of Chester next to Lake Almanor. At Chester we diverged from Route 89 to dash several miles east on Route 36 to the village of Westwood and our wonderful camp next to the Mountain Meadows reservoir, just east of Lake Almanor. Here we were given a magnificent site just a stone's throw from the lake, and high enough up so that our vista of the lake and sky is absolutely unequaled.

Folks here at the camp are so nice that we've already had lengthy conversations with both the itinerant maintenance couple who live in their RV and travel around to work in various camps, and the manager and his wife who were born and raised in Carson City and have been here at the "Northshore Camp" for about six years.

So there you have it. We had a super day where we hadn't originally counted on anything special. We got to see a National Park we'd never visited in the past. And we found a dynamite camp in a tiny town where we hadn't expected anything special. I'd say today is one for the record books! And when you decide to hit the road and follow your instincts into the sunset, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.