Life continues to be pretty stressful for us, so we decided to escape from it (again) for a long weekend.  We opted for camping and hiking in a new national park, Lassen.  We absolutely LOVED it and can't believe that we've both been in the Bay Area for as long as we have without having been there.  All told, it's pretty close (only 5 hours away), gorgeous and not even crowded.  We had three pretty perfect days there weekend before last.

We left town on Thursday afternoon and headed to Butte Lake.  Butte Lake is in the northeast corner of the park and is one of the four campgrounds that takes reservations - it was also the only one with availability on such short notice.  We had intended to stay there one night and then camp at Summit Lake at the base of Lassen, but on the morning we left, we got an email and phone call saying the campground was still closed due to snow.  We had to change our plans a bit and ended up at Butte Lake for all three nights.  It resulted in a little extra driving, but it actually turned out preferable to our original plans.

Friday held blue, blue skies and puffy clouds.  We woke up and decided to go into the heart of the park and gawk at Mt. Lassen and all the snow.  We first drove to the Manzanita entrance where we walked around the lake and admired Lassen in its reflection.  We fell in love with the camp store and their deliciously over-sized soft-serve twisty cones.  We then drove the main highway through the park, stopping along the way to take in the views.  The sheer quantity of snow for July 22 was unheard of.  Helen and Emerald lakes which sit at the base of Lassen were still covered in snow, and the snow banks on either sides of the road were 15 - 20 feet high in some places.  Needless to say, no hiking was done to the peak (it's also under restoration) - we will just have to come back.  We did hike out to Bumpass Hell (in the snow) and had some gorgeous views and were blown away by all the hydro-thermal activity.  There was more going on here (that we could see) than at Hawaii Volcanoes NP.  We finished out the drive to the opposite end of the park, checking out the mud pots and fumaroles on the way before returning to our camp site for dinner. (We dined well this weekend: fajitas & rice, pasta al pesto and garlic bread, scrambled eggs with garden tomatoes and cinnamon rolls.  We certainly do love our camp oven!)

Saturday didn't require us getting in the car at all!  From our campsite we hiked to Cinder Cone and past the Painted Dunes.  The climb to the top and heart of the Cinder Cone was STEEP and tricky.  For every three steps forward, you slid one step backwards.  It was worse than hiking in sand.  The views from the top were beautiful with clear vistas of Brokeoff Mountain, Lassen and Chaos Crag and Snag and Butte lakes.  We then descended, skirted the Painted Dunes and the impressive mounds of lava that make up the Fantastic Lava Beds that go for MILES and hiked (in cinder) to Snag Lake.  The lake was surprisingly comfortable and our mid-hike swim was quite refreshing.  We had grand ambitions of circling the lake and returning to Butte Lake by way of a 13 mile loop.  Unfortunately for us, Lee's shoes fell apart (literally lost the soles of his shoe) and we had to return the way we came.  Duct tape saved us from what could have been a nightmare.  Nine miles in cinder was hard enough without busted shoes.  We enjoyed a few hours chilling at camp, playing our new favorite game (San Juan), reading and eating before calling it a night.

Sunday, before returning to reality, we went to the Werner Valley trailhead for a final hike.  We were amazed at how each day the hiking was incredibly different.  Sunday's trail was in the mountains, with gorgeous meadows, a running stream, a forest, beautiful wildflowers and melting snow.  The crazy thing though, is at the end of each trail we did was an active hydro-thermal area.  The first was Devil's Kitchen.  It wasn't quite as cool as Bumpass Hell, but it was larger than we expected and nestled into the mountains.  If only fewer of the mud-pots weren't dried up!  We then headed to Boiling Springs Lake - a good sized lake that averages 125 degrees.  Along its shore were mud pots, boiling pots and fumaroles.  Another pretty cool vista.

We loved our weekend in Lassen and took a bunch of pictures.  You can find them HERE.