Climbing the peak
Today’s adventure was to climb Lassen Peak.
It was cold in the morning. The thermometer at the cabin said it was 45F (7C), which is pretty cold for SoCal people like us. It certainly seemed cold for August. We went over to the little restaurant at the Mineral Lodge for breakfast.
After breakfast, we headed up into the park. The trail to the peak starts at nearly the highest point on the road through the park. It was about 8,500 feet (2591M) above sea level. This was a trail that didn’t mess around. It was steep uphill from the start, and it never let up. The trail switchbacked up to the top of the east ridge, and then it climbed up the ridge to the summit. Along the way, we passed a number of snowbanks, and we had to promise Lucinda that she could play in them on the way down.
This was easily the biggest hike Lucinda has ever done. And I ended up playing mule and carrying her for about half the hike. But that was all right. We want her to remember it as a fun time and not as a Death March. And this hike was truly the high point of our trip. 10,450 feet according to my handheld GPS unit, and 10,457 (3,187M) by the USGS map. Either way, it was a tall mountain. The air was noticeably thin at the top, but that didn’t bother us too much. We made the 2.5 mile trip up in 90 minutes, which wasn’t bad for toting a 48-pound live load on my back.
At the top, we saw the big lava dome left by the 1917 eruption. We also had a commanding view of the park and of Northern California. We could see Mt. Shasta clearly off in the distance. It was a perfect day.
There was a lot of snow at the summit, so Lucinda wanted to play in it. We stayed up there for a while before heading down. It was pretty cold and windy up there, so we were glad we brought our jackets.
For the trip down, Lucinda walked the whole way by herself. When we got the big snowbank near the bottom, she met another little girl, and they played together in the snow for a long time. But that was all right, since we didn’t really have anything else planned for the day.
When the day was over, we got dinner at the Mineral Lodge and then went back to our cabin for the night.
Here is the link to all the pictures from the day.
