Shells on the Seashore: Trip to Lassen

A couple weekends ago, Dawn, Marilyn and I were able to take a trip to Mt. Lassen. What a great time we had. Nice to get away from the city and up to God's incredible creation. Lassen is by far one of my most favorite places to soak up clean fresh air, to gaze at the evergreen canopy with the deep blue sky for a backdrop, to experience wild life, to try a new adventure, and to simply relax.

Here we took a short walk after dinner one night. We went to a little natural spring up the road from the cabin and we saw what we think was a marmot. We each took turns cooking dinner and had wonderful dinners. Good job ladies. One the first night I taught the game Skip Bo, and they were hooked for the rest of the trip. I did not win too many games, the newbies did.

The first full day of our trip we took a drive up to Lassen National Park. Beautiful day and incredible weather. My plan was to hike to Mill Creek falls but God had other plans. Upon entering the park we found out that the trail head was closed to the falls but we could go through the park and hike to the falls from Kings Canyon. New adventure, have never done a trail through Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon is on the North side of the park and to get there we were going to drive through some of the most beautiful country that I have ever see. I was so excited for Dawn and Marilyn to see the beauty of God's awesome creation. They were not disappointed. There is so much to see. Here are a few pictures of the beauty that we encountered.

When we got to Kings Canyon we saw a sign that talked about the mileage to Mill Creek Falls. It was 3.8 miles one way, which was what we were told was the round trip mileage. I knew that distance on our first hike would be too much, especially at 7,500 and possibly hiking up another 1,000. So, we decided to go to a lake that was about half that distance. I knew that was manageable. It was funny, my friends were trying to equate the mileage to a trial near home or to a 5k. They were thinking that they "normally" can do a 3 mile hike in an hour. I had to tell them that it just does not work that way with the altitude.

Off we went to find this lake (not pictured). About 3/4 of a mile into the nice hike we saw a beautiful meadow with flowers. Each of us eagerly moved on to get to this meadow. Marilyn asked, "Are there bears in this country?" I replied, "Oh yeah, they are up here on these trails. I have seen a few on other hikes I have been on." About a minute after this question, there not 10 feet away from us was a California Black Bear. I think we startled her and she definitely startled us. She shuffled over a down tree and looked at us. Marilyn had already taken off back down the trial we had come on. I was still

gazing at the bear, thinking in my head, "Let's take a picture. No let's not take a picture. She does not look too disturbed, let's keep walking to the lake." Turning to see what my friends wanted to do, they were back down the trail 30 feet. I turned back to look at the bear and she was standing up looking at us. I say she because she was not huge but not small, she had long blond shaggy hair around her face and head and she was calm. Since my buddies were back down the trial I needed to catch up with them. I remembered at that point that you need to look larger than life to scare off a bear. I told this to my friends as I caught up with them. I heard Dawn say out loud to herself (or to God), "Oh dear God, help us. Oh dear God, keep us safe." The told me they had quiet the adrenalin rush, I was doing fine. I think the first time I saw a bear on a trial I got the rush but not this time. Now our plans completely were changed. There was no way that I was going to get them to go back on the trail

where the bear was hanging out. There was another trail back about 1/4 of a mile to Bumpas Hell. I really did not want to go to Bumpas Hell. I'd been there before and it was nothing special and it stinks seriously like rotten eggs. I had hiked to Bumpas Hell from another trail at the top of the mountain. There were a bunch of kids from a summer camp coming down the trail. I asked a grown up what the trail was like. He said it will be all up hill until we got there. The trail marker said 1.9 miles from this point. I rationalized the details in my mind and decided that we could do the hike. The hike was all uphill and I think we climbed close to a 1,000 feet but we saw some of the most incredible scenery. By the time we made it to Bumpas Hell we were ready to eat our lunch that we had in our packs. We all thanked God that the bear did not tear us to shreds to get to our lunches that I am sure she could smell. Up the trail took 1 hour 40 minutes and back down 40 minutes.

After the hike we drove down to Summit Lake. Dawn and I swam across the lake. It was the first time Dawn had ever been in a mountain lake. The next day we planned to hike the peak of Lassen but we were all a little worn out from the previous day. We went into town where there was a arts festival and we went to another big lake and hung out and swam.

At the cabin we had quite the show from the wildlife. There were deer, chipmunks, squirrels, birds and the mystery critter.