Snow

 1/22- Paradise CA

   All this time I’m trying to get away from snow what do we do but go to snow. We drove out to Mt Lassen National Park today. It was a very beautiful drive heading up the canyon.  We drove past areas that had been burned in last summers Park fire. One side of the road was all burned trees and on the other were healthy trees. This was the very top of the canyon and the road meandered along the edge giving us some great views. 

    We eventually made our way past the fire shadow and we dropped into the canyon. We were surrounded by mountains ( literally) of towering Douglas firs and Ponderosa Pines. Redwoods were speckled in between. We met many loaded down logging trucks as they were cleaning up the burned trees. The road twisted and spun as so many roads around here do until we got to the national park. 

    The snow was just a few patches here and there until we got started up the road. The banks on the side of the road grew from 6” to 6 feet by the time we got to the gate. You could barely see the visitor center as it was almost buried in snow. But the road and parking lot were clear so we pulled up and parked. A and A wanted to snow shoe up the trail but I didn’t have snowshoes so I just walked with Saryn. It was a beautiful bluebird day and it was in the 50’s so it was very pleasant walking on the packed path. We hiked up to the sulphur springs which was a mile or so away. I tested the boiling water with my finger and sure enough it was very hot. It also stunk of sulphur. 

   Mt Lassen is a ten thousand foot mountain in the Sierra Nevadas. We had managed to go from 100 feet to 7000 feet today to go hiking. The return trip would have been amazing on a bicycle. The trip was downhill for about 50 miles as we dropped down into the valley again. 

    It was a very impressive day. We had heard about Lassen before from A’s sisters but never really did much about it. Now that we know how beautiful it is we will push harder for a return when we visit in the future.  

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