Will We Make It?

[Patty]

Hi Alan! We've been going in the fall the past few years due to lower crowds vs spring and had been contemplating a March trip this year. We were a bit apprehensive about going in June but the crowd level was like a late September/early October trip. I believe the first week the Montana side opened it was 50% of normal. I heard it's gotten busier since then.

[Patty]

We left Bend at 7:30am for the drive to Crater Lake taking the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. The morning was overcast but the mountain and lake scenery was still beautiful and it was only 15 minutes or so longer than taking 97.

 

Mt Bachelor

We entered Crater Lake through the north entrance which was unmanned. There was still quite a bit of snow and many trails were closed. That's twice we could've used snowshoes at Crater Lake.




 

We stopped at the overlooks along the west rim drive. We got lucky as the sun started coming out and it was clear as the crater can often be enshrouded in fog.




 

The most spectacular overlook at least on the west rim (we've never seen the east) was Watchman Overlook where a woman had walked to the edge and was freaking us out. She even slipped a couple of times.


 

It wasn't until we got to the rim village that you could really walk any distance without snow. This also tended to concentrate all of the people in one area. By the time we left the rim village the first parking lot was full.


 

We headed down toward lower elevations and found a nice picnic spot before Mazama Village. Mosquitoes are out in force here so the first thing we had to do was spray ourselves. Cutter lemon eucalyptus works really well. Then we went and checked out the cabins at Mazama Village which were full and the campground which to our surprise still had space. Up until now we've been finding most campgrounds full except for out in the middle of nowhere Oregon. We got ice cream bars at the store and sat on their rocking chairs watching the queue of cars that had now formed at the south entrance. I counted 30 on our way out. Our last stop was just outside of the park entrance to view the spire formations.






 

We descended further to Fort Klamath where we checked into the Aspen Inn. This is an older motel that has been recently redone and we were pleasantly surprised. The wifi works well too.
 

In the late afternoon we drove south to the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge but had difficulty figuring out how to access it. There weren't the usual roads or viewing areas or trails. We finally figured out that this is refuge you access via water. There's a dock at Rocky Point where you can rent kayaks/SUPs/canoes for the bargain price of $5 per day and there's a campground with two sites and a launch area at Malone Springs. It's a refuge with canoe trails instead of hiking trails. It looked like a beautiful area to paddle. Again lots of mosquitoes.

[Patty]

We got home on Wednesday. I'll finish up the last 3 nights shortly.

[Patty]

We left Fort Klamath before 6am taking a longer back route to Lassen. Last time we had taken 97 to 5 and all we both could remember was that it was full of trucks. In about an hour we had reached the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges. We stopped at a hide but the area was swarming with flies so we didn't stay long. Mark put his mask on to inhale less flies.

 

 

We entered Lava Beds National Monument from the unmanned north entrance. No fees are being collected currently. Looking at a map later I realized we could've driven through Tule Lake NWR and that road would've connected to the east entrance of Lava Beds. Our first stop was at the spatter cones.









Then we headed for the cave loop which is open from 8am to 5pm. Along this one way loop are several lava tubes you can enter as long as they're not closed due to the presence of bats. They're labeled green, blue or black for degree of difficulty. The first one we entered was Mushpot which is the only cave that's lit, has a walkway and descriptions of what you were seeing inside. The lighting was dim so a flashlight helped. For all of the others a flashlight is necessary.
 

 

Next we went into Golden Dome which had a slightly bumpy but easily navigable floor. In each of the ones we entered we had to duck a bit but didn't need to crawl.





The last one we entered was Sunshine named because light came through in several open spots.


 

There are more interesting volcanic formations here and we could've spent more time but still had some distance to go to get to Lassen so we exited out of the south entrance to continue our drive. The back route was much prettier and we saw few cars for most of it. Overall it took an hour longer but we wanted to see Lava Beds anyway. We were surprised to find most of the national forest campgrounds in this area still closed. When we arrived at the north entrance of Lassen there was a short queue to enter with one ranger handing out maps and letting national park pass holders bypass the kiosk. Our first stop was at Manzanita Lake for a picnic. The lake area was very busy on a warm Sunday afternoon but we found parking by the campground store. BTW the gas station here was closed. Lots of people were kayaking on the lake. The visitor centers here and at Lava Beds are the first open ones on our trip though we didn't go into them.


 

The main park highway is 30 miles long and goes from 5880 ft in elevation up to 8512 ft and back down to 6707 ft through some spectacular scenery. We stopped at the Devastated Area which had remnants of the 1915 eruption as well as earlier eruptions. Can you guess which 3 out of 5 rocks are from 1915 vs 27,000 years ago? Probably not fair since you can't examine the rocks closely. We could but guessed wrong anyway.
 

 

Past 7000 ft we started seeing patches of snow on the ground but far less than at Crater Lake. Both locations tend to get a great deal of snow so we were surprised at the difference but we had a very dry January and early February in CA. We made another stop at the Lassen Peak trailhead and at Lake Helen.




 

After that we started dropping down in elevation and stopped at the Bumpass Hell trailhead for a view of Brokeoff Mountain.
 

 

This was followed by Sulphur Works, a geothermal area that's right by the highway.
 

 

We exited the park at the southwest entrance where there was a short queue to enter and continued to Lassen Mineral Lodge just a few miles outside of the park heading west on 36. The only accommodations inside the park are the camper cabins at Manzanita Lake and Drakesbad Ranch which is in the Warner Valley part of the park and not along the main park highway. We didn't want to share bathrooms and the ranch besides having no availability is only convenient to that particular part of the park. I also inquired about the cabins at Mill Creek Resort but they only had single nights available. While the atmosphere around the cabins would've been nicer, we're grateful to have AC in our motel room for the next few days. There was another motel available, The Village at Childs Meadows, but they didn't have AC or kitchens. Highlands Ranch which shares the same ownership was also not available. And that's about it for nearby accommodations without traveling 45 minutes away. This area is fairly remote and even the gas station has closed so the nearest gas is 45 minutes away. We had dinner on the patio of the lodge restaurant and were surprised how decent it was.

Edited June 26, 2020 by Patty

[Atravelynn]

I would say you made it and lived to tell about it.  Lots of bear activity and more!  Do you think Barf brought you luck?  What's with Barf anyway?  Sorry if I missed it.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Atravelynn

[Patty]

@Atravelynn we found Barf at a Costco shortly after we lost both of our dogs. We haven't been able to bring ourselves to get another dog so he's our surrogate travel companion now!

[Patty]

Today we headed to the Warner Valley part of the park. This required heading east on 36 which has a long section of construction with one way traffic controls and sometimes both sides stopped. Without construction the drive takes about an hour and 15 minutes. We left the motel at 6:15am and were in the queue by 6:20am only I had a wardrobe malfunction. Now I had to decide whether to leave the queue or buy an I Love Chester t-shirt when I got there. We went back to the motel where I changed, getting back to the construction area at 6:40am where the same cars were still waiting. At 6:50am we started to move. We passed the town of Chester which is about halfway between the southwest entrance and Warner Valley. Chester is a much larger town with a bigger market, more restaurants and places to stay and could be used as a base depending on where you wanted to spend more time. We got to the trail head at 8am to start our hike to Devils Kitchen, a geothermal area. The hike is 5 miles and relatively easy but felt longer due to the heat. And who thought adding hot steam to a hot day would be a good idea? That would be me. I've already vetoed my own idea of hiking the back route to Bumpass Hell, another geothermal area, tomorrow (the shorter route is still closed due to snow). There were a few mosquitoes on the hike but not bad and we saw 12 other hikers and 2 horse riders, mostly on the way back.
 

Me by the end of the hike
 

After the hike we drove to the end of the road where Drakesbad Ranch is and both thought it looked kind of run down for $400 a night for a shared bath cabin but it's in a nice setting.
 

 

We headed back to Chester for gas, a few groceries and lunch on the patio of Cravings. Chester is in Plumas County and there's definitely a different vibe here. Plumas County also has had their own mask ordinance so compliance was about 75% indoors. In counties without a previous order we noticed that no one is following the new state order.

 

We decided to take 172 through Mill Creek back to Mineral to skirt around the construction. It's narrow and winding but is a very pretty drive. We also checked out the cabin area of Mill Creek Resort and while we much prefer the setting, we're still glad to have AC. Mark said we would've gone home already otherwise. We had dinner again at the lodge restaurant. They have good fried chicken. After dinner we walked around the property and there's another section of the motel along with a gift shop that looks shuttered. There were only 3 or 4 rooms occupied during our stay.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Patty

[Patty]

We slept in and didn't get to the southwest entrance until the late hour of 8am! It was still unmanned at this hour. We drove to the Kings Creek picnic area and took the short trail to Cold Boiling Lake. At 7500 ft there were still patches of snow and it was a bit cooler than hiking in the lower elevations of Warner Valley yesterday. We started toward the next lake, Crumbaugh, but it got marshy so we turned around.






 

Next we drove to Summit Lake for a short walk by the lakeshore.

 

Lake Helen had completely thawed since Sunday.

 

It was now starting to get as hot as yesterday so we drove back down to the visitor center and cafe for soft serve.

Since we're heat wusses we spent the afternoon drinking beer on the porch. Dinner was at the lodge restaurant again. They have good homemade peach cobbler too.


 

Three firefighters were waiting for takeout and ran out for a fire call while we were eating. They didn't return to pick up their food before we left so though we couldn't smell or see smoke, we decided to pack up some of our stuff and place it in the car. Barf went back into the car too. Before we went to bed, we did another smoke check as well as checking the Cal Fire pages and didn't see anything.

 

[Patty]

We got a last minute invite to stay at a friend's cabin in Graegle two hours south but reluctantly declined due to the fact that it's even hotter there as Graegle is at 4000 ft. We decided it was time to head home after 30 nights on the road. Our drive home took a fairly uneventful 5 hours with the exception of almost getting into an accident half an hour from our house when a driver tried to change lanes without looking. Gas station restrooms seem to be open now. We stopped to pick up a few groceries and noticed there are definitely more people out and about vs a month ago. With the exception of Bend, the Monterey Peninsula feels busy compared to where we've been. We were happy to drive back into our summer fog. Other than being unable to visit Glacier, our trip went very smoothly and it got us to check out a few places we've never been before. We both found John Day Fossil Beds surprisingly delightful and were charmed by the town of Joseph. Just yesterday the Blackfeet Tribe announced that the eastern border of Glacier will remain closed for the season. I'm glad we went when we did as less people being out made it easier to rearrange parts of our trip at the last minute.

[Atravelynn]

9 hours ago, Patty said:

@Atravelynn we found Barf at a Costco shortly after we lost both of our dogs. We haven't been able to bring ourselves to get another dog so he's our surrogate travel companion now!

I'm sure your dogs had wonderful lives with you!

[Atdahl]

@Patty, 

 

"we found Barf at a Costco"

 

Wow, they really do sell EVERYTHING! 

 

We really enjoyed reading along with your road trip.  It sounds like you guys had a really nice time and I am sure it was nice to escape for a while.   Thanks for sharing your adventures with us.

 

Alan

[Zubbie15]

Thanks for sharing @Patty, you'd convinced me to spend a week in the Grand Teton and Yellowstone area next year, until we sat down and calculated how many vacation days we have and realized it won't work. Sometime soon!