Geoff and Jenn's 1998 California Trip
Day
7: Lassen and Burney Falls
Friday, October 2nd, 1998
Well, Emerson made it through the night fairly
well, but not well enough to cause both parents to vowing in the
morning that the remaining two nights would be spent in the
comfort of a motel room. The night was quite chilly and even
better -- wet!
The day, however, got increasingly better and
by the end, this was one of the best days of the trip so far. We
broke camp to head to Bumpass (funny name, eh?) Hell -- a 3 mile
hike to one of the largest geothermal spots in the park. We took
a number of pictures along the way. The area reminded us of a
strange combination of the Snowy Range, Yellowstone and Mt. Hood
-- all twirled together into one area.
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Looking
down into [Bumpass] Hell
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One
of Bumpass' many mudpots
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From Lassen NP, we headed out towards Mt.
Shasta. Along the way we stopped at Subway Cave -- a small 1/3
mile lava cave. This one was considerably different than the many
caves we have spelunked in Oregon and Washington. The walls were
quite smooth and lacked the "skull" slice-through
profile. In the parking lot we found a pack of ... school
children out on a field trip. We had a laugh at the imagined
X-Files scene of 50 children walking through a cave with flash
lights flying every which way. On the way out we saw a beautiful
wood pecker.
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Overall
view of Smith-Burney Falls (notice the sides weeping
in addition to the main "split" falls)
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Next stop was Burney
Falls state park. This was a beautiful falls in which a
volumous river split into two tongues to create a double
waterfall. In addition to the two main branches, the
water table also hit the bluff over which the falls
flowed. Thus, around the sides of where the river went
over were hundreds of smaller falls in which the water
simply came pouring out of the rock. It has to be seen in
order to be believed. |
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A closer
look at the water pouring directly out of the rock face
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Em pulling
the reigns in on Mom
From the Falls we headed on out to Mt. Shasta,
which has been strangely absent from our panaramas during the
entire trip. It finally showed itself as we approached the town
with the same name. We stopped for dinner at Lily's -- a spot
known for pasta (the creamy clam garlic dish was premo!). Emerson
was perfect at dinner (thank god, given that they used fancy lace
for table cloths) and he ended up flirting with all the different
waitresses he worked there (earning lots of complements on how
cute he is).
We then
headed down to Dunsmuir to do our token cheesy act for
the vacation: we stayed in a motel in which every room is
in an abandoned railroad caboose car! I know, its kind of
cheesy -- but nonetheless, it was great fun! And the
rooms were rather nice! The first thing we did was to
jump for the shower -- our 2nd in almost a week. I then,
somehow, got sucked into watching a stupid movie
(Anaconda) before heading off to writing and sleep.
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Another
look at our railroad car!
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All-aboard!
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