Day 11 - Thursday, Sept 13 - Klamath Falls, OR to Lassen NP to San Jose, CA
Starting mileage: 3525 Starting time: 8:00 am
Ending mileage: 4010 Ending time: 7:00 pm
Travel mileage: 485 Travel time: 11:00 hours
The weather lady on the local TV station said that the temperature in Klamath Falls was 33 degrees this morning and there is a freeze warning for tonight!
On the way down to Lassen NP, we saw a billboard complaining about water availability and read an article about farmers in the Klamath Basin suing a judge over a ruling to reduce withdrawing irrigation water from a river in order to protect salmon in a river. Apparently the salmon population in the river is threatened by not enough water and the drought is exacerbating the problem.
The signs of forest fires new and old are ever-present. The sky was very hazy due to major fires to the west although fortunately there were no road closures. We went through one area that must have had a fire very recently as there were still piles of white and black ash on the hillsides along the road. There were signs thanking the firefighters.
Just before Lassen NP we saw a sign for Subway Cave and decided to pull in. It is a lava tube cave that is readily accessible through sections of the roof that caved in, with 1300' of cave in between. We started to go in with the flashlights that we had but one had dying batteries and the mini-LED flashlight was not bright enough to navigate the cave so we gave up.
We were at Lassen NP at the same time in September three years ago but couldn't take the route through the park as it was starting to snow and the road was closed just after we got there. We thought we should have been able to make it, but today, after following the road up to 8500' and seeing the sheer drops along the road, realized that it would have been a bit too exciting.
There is a downloadable audio guide for traveling through the park but with no cell coverage and no WiFi, we couldn't download it. We improvised by Carmen reading the printed guide as we traveled through the park. The volcanic activity in the park is fairly recent, with major volcanic eruptions from 1915 to 1922. A photographer in the park in 1915 managed to capture photos of the eruption just as it was occurring and afterwards. He was very fortunate as one place he was photographing from was obliterated by lahar flow of boulders and mud just hours later.
We thought we were fortunate to find a picnic table at a stop with spectacular views Mt. Lassen and the remnants of the lahar only to have our lunch attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets and we had to retreat to the car to eat lunch. At this stop there was a short trail explaining the 1915 eruption and showing the differences between the new lava boulders and the 27,000 year old lava boulders that had been ejected at the same time.
The trees in Lassen are interesting with a mix of cedar, Douglas fir, Ponderosa and Lodgepole pine.
Near the exit from the park, there are mudpots and steaming fumaroles near a site where someone had been mining sulfur from the vents from the early 1900s.
Coming down into the valley along the I-5, the agriculture was very different with vineyards, peach and plum orchards, olive groves and some rice fields. The median of the I-5 had beautiful red, pink and white oleander shrubs.
We are staying in Morgan Hill, a short ways south of the IBM lab in San Jose.
Ending mileage: 4010 Ending time: 7:00 pm
Travel mileage: 485 Travel time: 11:00 hours
The weather lady on the local TV station said that the temperature in Klamath Falls was 33 degrees this morning and there is a freeze warning for tonight!
On the way down to Lassen NP, we saw a billboard complaining about water availability and read an article about farmers in the Klamath Basin suing a judge over a ruling to reduce withdrawing irrigation water from a river in order to protect salmon in a river. Apparently the salmon population in the river is threatened by not enough water and the drought is exacerbating the problem.
The signs of forest fires new and old are ever-present. The sky was very hazy due to major fires to the west although fortunately there were no road closures. We went through one area that must have had a fire very recently as there were still piles of white and black ash on the hillsides along the road. There were signs thanking the firefighters.
Just before Lassen NP we saw a sign for Subway Cave and decided to pull in. It is a lava tube cave that is readily accessible through sections of the roof that caved in, with 1300' of cave in between. We started to go in with the flashlights that we had but one had dying batteries and the mini-LED flashlight was not bright enough to navigate the cave so we gave up.
We were at Lassen NP at the same time in September three years ago but couldn't take the route through the park as it was starting to snow and the road was closed just after we got there. We thought we should have been able to make it, but today, after following the road up to 8500' and seeing the sheer drops along the road, realized that it would have been a bit too exciting.
There is a downloadable audio guide for traveling through the park but with no cell coverage and no WiFi, we couldn't download it. We improvised by Carmen reading the printed guide as we traveled through the park. The volcanic activity in the park is fairly recent, with major volcanic eruptions from 1915 to 1922. A photographer in the park in 1915 managed to capture photos of the eruption just as it was occurring and afterwards. He was very fortunate as one place he was photographing from was obliterated by lahar flow of boulders and mud just hours later.
We thought we were fortunate to find a picnic table at a stop with spectacular views Mt. Lassen and the remnants of the lahar only to have our lunch attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets and we had to retreat to the car to eat lunch. At this stop there was a short trail explaining the 1915 eruption and showing the differences between the new lava boulders and the 27,000 year old lava boulders that had been ejected at the same time.
The trees in Lassen are interesting with a mix of cedar, Douglas fir, Ponderosa and Lodgepole pine.
Near the exit from the park, there are mudpots and steaming fumaroles near a site where someone had been mining sulfur from the vents from the early 1900s.
Coming down into the valley along the I-5, the agriculture was very different with vineyards, peach and plum orchards, olive groves and some rice fields. The median of the I-5 had beautiful red, pink and white oleander shrubs.
We are staying in Morgan Hill, a short ways south of the IBM lab in San Jose.
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| Day 11 map |
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| Carmen in Subway Cave |
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| Mt. Lassen |
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| Mudpot - the video with audio is more impressive! |
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