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After a few years of taking our annual camping trip we kind of got into a rhythm. By now we had gone north (to Vancouver Island) and northeast (to the Northern Cascades and northeastern Oregon) so it was time to head south. We figured out an interesting looking loop — down to Crater Lake, then on to Lassen National Park, then across California to the Redwoods and back. As usual an ambitious but doable route and with not much more of a plan than to just see what we discovered along the way.
We had a new vehicle this time. I was due for a new car and gave some thought, along with other considerations, to getting something that would be good for camping trips. I was looking for an SUV originally, but the Subaru Outback was a better fit. It was actually a car and rode like one, unlike SUVs of the time, but had the same clearance, was four wheel drive, and had the same cargo capacity, plus was a lot cheaper. Ultimately I’d add a cargo carrier to the roof but not yet.
I assume, that as usual, we got a late start because we camped the first night in Roseburg which is only a 3 hour drive from Portland. We ended up camping just off the highway under a highway overpass, but I remember it wasn’t a bad spot and had a little creek to look at. Might have been a KOA.
The next day we stopped at the Wildlife Safari in Winston, which is a spot I always like to visit (and one day would take the love of driving around to look at animals to the extreme and go to Kenya to do it). The highlight I remember was that we saw cheetahs and got quite close to them. The Wildlife Safari is known for their work with cheetahs but we’ve had limited success seeing them over the years when we’ve gone to visit.
Then on to Crater Lake. We cut over from Roseburg on the road that would have brought us to the northern part of the lake, with the plan we would drive down one side or the other and get a good view. But no such luck. It was October and when we got to the road into the park, we found it was closed and for good reason. There was 2 feet of snow on the ground! The gate was closed, and, for those of you who know and understand Les, there wasn’t any way to get around the gate. Not to mention the snow was a little deep even for the Outback.
We found some way to skirt around the lake and come back around from the south side. This is the “main” entrance, which goes up to the lodge and luckily, it had been plowed and was still open. I had never been to Crater Lake, despite living in Oregon for 13 years at that point, and I hadn’t given it a lot of thought. It was created when Mount Mazama, one of the volcanic mountains of the Cascade Range, literally blew its top off in an eruption, exposing a crater that filled with water. I got that, but I hadn’t really thought about what that really meant in terms of topology. The mountain didn’t ‘break off’ at sea level. It blew off a good way up. In fact over 7000 feet up! So it’s not like a typical lake you might think of where it’s basically at the same level you are and you maybe walk down a small grade to the water’s edge. You have to drive up a mountainside (the outside of the crater) to the top and then (if you are going to go into the water), walk back down the other side for a mile or so before you get to the water. From the air it looks like the rim of a water droplet that has just hit a puddle.
Needless to say there was a lot of snow up there. But it was a beautiful (albeit a bit chilly) sunny day with blue skies and some clouds low around the rim. The trees were covered in snow and the water was a deep blue. Very pretty. We took a bunch of photos and then went into the lodge to check it out.
The lodge was built in the early 1900’s and has that rustic look of many national park lodges. Since the snowfall on the rim is over 500 inches a year, it had to be built to withstand some very heavy weight, so it’s built out of big timbers. The interior is a combination of wood and stone. It’s quite nice and we wandered around for 10-15 minutes or so checking it out.
When we came back out, to our surprise, it was whiteout conditions. The clouds had rolled in and it was snowing. You couldn’t see the lake or much of anything else. I have two pictures of Les roughly 10-15 minutes apart from about the same spot. In one, you can see the lake and the rim on the other side. In the other, nothing. We took it as a sign it was time to move on and so we did.
We headed down towards Klamath Falls but I think it was fairly late in the day at that point and it was time to find a place to camp. And there was nothing. We were out in the middle of nowhere it seemed. There was a light snow falling. We were out on Forest Service land and as Les pointed out, it’s public land and we can just pull over and camp on it. I’m still not completely sure that’s true but regardless, that’s what we did. We found a dirt road and went down it a ways, found a flat spot and pulled off and set up camp. At this point in our adventures we hadn’t acquired ‘rough camping’ equipment like a table or chairs so we cooked on the ground and ate standing up under a gerry-rigged canopy to keep the snow off. It was obviously cold enough to snow but I don’t remember it being freezing. Not like some of the mornings in Montana and Wyoming on the Sequent sabbatical trips a few years before, which I still remember vividly. Probably we had learned from that experience and brought warmer clothes.
In any event, we passed the night undisturbed. I don’t remember but I’m guessing it was a pretty quick morning breaking camp. Although I’m sure some sort of breakfast was had because I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had something to eat!
As I said, I don’t remember if we had passed Klamath Falls the night before or went past it in the morning, but regardless, we were headed for Lassen Park and per tradition, were trying to do so off the main roads. And when I say off the main roads, I mean off the main roads. We were on Forest Service roads (i.e. dirt roads) through the trees. And as an added bonus, they were covered in a few inches of snow. Probably not the brightest idea in the world that time of year but on the other hand, it was a nice sunny day and we weren’t bothered by any other traffic and the Outback was proving to be an ideal vehicle for the trip. Very sure footed in slippery conditions. We passed various signs warning us that we were off the beaten path but with the snow on the road, everything looked very smooth and flat. I might have been more concerned if I could have actually seen the road.
We ended up driving down the east side of Mt Shasta, a view I’d never had before. I-5, the route normal people take when heading south, passes Shasta on the west side and we had always gone that way before. So it felt a bit like taking the backstage tour. It was actually quite a pretty and interesting drive and at some point we got low enough the snow disappeared and we were on dirt roads again.
I don’t know how we found the roads we took or how we knew they went where we wanted to go. Maybe we had a forest service map. But somehow we found our way back out and as we neared Lassen we came across (I assume) signs for McArthur-Burney Falls State Park and decided to have a look. Or maybe that’s just where the forest roads let us out.
In any event, we stopped and explored the area, taking a hike along a very pretty river that cascaded down over large rock formations with lots of little rapids and small to medium sized waterfalls. We made our way to Burney Falls, which neither of us had ever heard of, but turned out to be quite large and very impressive. I’m pretty sure we had the place to ourselves as well. At least there are no other people in the pictures. We stayed for a while and took lots of pictures (which given we were still pre-digital is indicative of both the amount of time we were there and how impressed we were with it as we tended to take a lot fewer pictures in those days since they cost money to print).
We continued south to Lassen Volcanic National Park. We didn’t spend a lot of time there as I recall. Kind of a drive through experience. Although we did get out and walk around a bit in various spots and we drove up to an observation area pretty high up on the mountain where the view was quite expansive. We took a walk along some boardwalks in a volcanic area where the smell of sulfur was quite strong. Very reminiscent of Yellowstone. We were back up in higher elevations so there was plenty of snow. But the roads, at least the ones we took, were open.
We took the obligatory picture in front of the National Park sign (a tradition from the Sequent trip) and turned west to head to the coast. I’m not sure of the exact route we took but I’m guessing it was Hwy 44 to I-5 and then Hwy 299 to just north of Eureka. I do remember it was a very pretty but very twisty turny drive and we couldn’t go particularly fast. But I also remember it didn’t take us all that long to go from snow covered mountain views to fairly warm sunset views over the Pacific and we marveled at how that was possible. And at this point it begs the question, did we spend another night somewhere between the snow covered forest service back road past Crater Lake and the California coast? There are no pictures, which indicates that no we didn’t, but if not, we had a very full day. But I’m pretty sure that’s just what happened. Because we arrived near sunset and we wouldn’t have if we had spent another night. The benefit of early start most likely. It was a fairly remarkable change of scenery without having to travel all that far.
We ended up camping at or near Patrick’s Point, north of Eureka. We set up camp and took a hike along the beach as the sun was going down. Les even ventured into the water even though he was still wearing long pants. Pretty sure he took his shoes and socks off at least. The afternoon light cast a warm golden glow. And the sunset wasn’t bad. We took one of my favorite pictures of us, standing at an overlook with the sunset behind us. We look like a couple of criminals on the run. Well, except maybe for the binoculars and camera Les has hanging around his neck. But still, it has an element of danger about it that I like.
When we got back to the campground, we found a couple of raccoons on our picnic table nosing around. We thought they were very cute and took their pictures. But shortly after, we realized they had stolen a bunch of our food — eggs, pop-tarts and Cheetos. Breakfast essentially. The little rascals! We labeled them the Varmint-Cong (in homage to Bill Murray in Caddyshack). We discovered the Cheetos bag down the path to the forest a little ways. Apparently the raccoons did not perceive them as food (which is understandable). But they did manage to get the pop tart box open and unwrap the foil. Pretty impressive. It was pretty funny actually but it was the last of our food and we cursed them again in the morning when we had to pack up hungry.
The next day (sans breakfast) we started heading for home, back up 101 towards Oregon. We stopped in the Redwoods, I think in the Ladybird Johnson Grove and took a hike around. Redwoods are very impressive and that particular grove is quite nice. The weather was sunny and pleasant and there’s nothing like a nice walk amongst huge and ancient trees to mellow you out. We may have made a brief stop at some other tree spots too but I don’t think so. We decided we needed to come back and spend a weekend camping there so we could get a better look (which we did the next year).
We made one more stop at another beach up nearer the Oregon border for a walk around. A very pretty spot and, as we like it, devoid of people. Les went in for another swim, but this time, he figured out how to keep his clothes dry (see the picture).
We must not have stopped after that, or at least didn’t take any pictures, which at this point is the only way I can remember what happened. But I assume we took the cut off to Cave Junction, which follows a very pretty river through the National Forest, back to I-5 at Grant’s Pass, and then home. Where presumably, as always, we arrived late in the evening.
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