LASSEN PARK – BLAST FROM THE PAST II

episode 2 in a weekend with extended family

 

Amazing how quickly a yesterday from 60-plus years ago seems like a yesterday from well… yesterday.

Candi, Brother Tim and I were driving the Lassen Park Road – it having opened for the season only a week before – stopping for alpine views, conversations with others and looking for sites for a picnic lunch. 

A few miles up the twisting route, we paused at a point to view the ragged rim of the ancient Mount Tehama. Stunted pines, dwarfed by elevation, roots cloaked in patchy snow, clung to basalt. In the distance lay Mill Creek Meadows and, beyond that, the azure, blue pool of Lake Almanor. 

A couple drove up on a black Harley Davidson, so I had to engage. A week out from Green Bay, Wisconsin, they were.  I told ‘em I was from nearby Chico. “Chico?” the man exclaimed. “We used to have one of your Chico boys in the Pack.” “Aaron Rogers,” I confirmed, “graduate of Pleasant Valley High.” “Yeah,” the man laughed. “He moved on to the Jets so we don’t care about him anymore.” Ahhh. The people you meet on the road.

 

State Route 89 is the highway that serpentines its way through Lassen Volcanic National Park. My pick for the most beautiful road in California, it runs from Mount Shasta City (Siskiyou County) to Topaz (Mono County) winding through volcanic legacy, high deserts, pristine lakes, tourist meccas and granite outcrops.  Beat that anywhere, I dare ya. Annually, from after the first significant snowfall of autumn until mid-June, the road is closed through Lassen ~ the 8500 foot summit too much for plows and blowers in those reaches. 

 

Everything seems so fresh and new just after opening. Two alpine ponds rest just below the summit. Lake Helen and its mate were both crusted with ice, but the parking lot to the Lassen Peak Trailhead was cleared. The cars of at least two dozen intrepid souls rested while their owners braved the mostly snow covered route to the 10,400 foot top. Not today for us.

At Kings Creek meadow we found the footing a bit dicey, so on to Summit Lake where we would pause for some crackers and cheese and fresh fruit. Or would we? The steel gates to the camping area were securely locked. Picnic area unavailable. I turned the Subaru around to retrace our steps. But Candi said, essentially, Not yet. Another U-turn (looking like damned out-of-state tourists) and we pressed a mile or two further.

 

Beginning on page 151 of “Eden, Indeed,”* in a recollection about my delivering foodstuffs to a fire camp on the Mendocino, a brief back story is offered about a 12-year-old me, on the Twin Lakes Trail in Lassen Park, hiking with Dad. 

A ‘call of nature’ prompts me to stray off trail when I find myself peeing into really warm duff.  Something wasn’t right and at Dad’s command, I hightailed it down the trail to the ranger’s outpost near where he’d parked his Jeepster.  

Almost before I could get the words out about the hot duff, the ranger grabbed a Pulaski, told me a little something about the nature of lightning strikes and raced up the trail.  I stood in the vacant ranger station not knowing what to do or where to go until Dad clambered down the trail lugging my Kelty Pack along with his own.

 

That mile or two further found us at the old outpost.  I walked across the parking area to the Echo Lake Trail that now had a wooden walkway crossing the meadow.  The place names on the directional sign were all familiar.  

I’d hiked to most of them and a carousel of memories circled in my head.  The bridge was new.  The sign was, too.  But everything else was exactly the same.

Almost.  Across the meadow beyond the bridge, the pine forest was a collection of denuded stumps and spikes, victims of 2022’s Dixie Fire which started forty miles away over ridges and down canyons. 

Standing next to the trail sign I recalled the ranger and his Pulaski and wondered if this might have been the result sixty years before had a young kid not ventured off the trail to pee.  Or was that just yesterday?

 

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

 

* Don’t yet have your copy of Eden, Indeed?  It’s still available to order from your local independent bookstore (it's in the Ingram-Spark catalog) or through your favorite online source. (The Church of the Open Road always recommends doing business with the former...)

LESSONS FROM A FIRE FOOTPRINT

 …second in a series from a long-put-off road trip

 

Northern California has always been my home.  For seventy-plus years my favorite places on earth always seem to be here.  The Covered Bridge on Butte Creek near Chico [page 81*], an out of town spot I’d pedaled to as a kid; Simpson Camp [page 186], a sheep herder’s outpost up toward Mendocino Pass; Mount Harkness [page 101], the Lassen Park promontory once staffed by Ed Abby: all hold memories of cool temperatures, fresh air, terrific views and get-away-from-it-all peacefulness.  And all places now visited by fire.  

 

I know this because I often hop on my motorcycle to visit some favored place and rekindle some memories.  Now, each time I straddle the thing, I find myself motoring into mile after mile of burn scar.  There’s no escaping it.

 

 

My riding buddy from Seattle and I met up in McCloud (Siskiyou County) to tour places of remembrance – expecting and enjoying views of Mounts Shasta and Lassen, Lakes Britton and Almanor and bergs Chester, Greenville and Quincy (Plumas County).  Except, Greenville ~ the Greenville I once knew ~ wasn’t there any longer.  The mostly wooden structures of its historic downtown must have gone up like a dried tinder match during 2021’s monstrous Dixie Fire.  I stood inside the foundation of  my once favorite café to snap a picture of the burned out hulk of the old Indian Valley Bank.

 

The Dixie Fire originated more than forty miles away in the depths of the Feather River Canyon. Pushed by gale-force winds, it spread east and north through forest and meadow and summer home tract and town consuming everything but memories. Up the road from Greenville, we stopped to stroll though some Plumas Forest acreage two-plus years removed from the inferno.  Blackened ponderosa pine trees spired toward an azure sky, likely awaiting salvage harvest.  But beneath the skeletons grew grasses, lupine, mule’s ears, even ferns. Life was returning.

 

 

This was reassuring because one can’t drive too far from wherever they live in almost any direction and not drive through burn scar.  Evidence is plentiful and bigger than ever.

 

Climate is naturally dynamic and ever-changing, but the boost mankind has provided over the last century-and-a-half is not a positive thing.  This I give passing thought to as I motor around Northern California on my fossil fuel powered, internal combustion motivated Moto Guzzi motorbike – and having a fine time – putting off until another day the uncomfortable conversation we all must eventually have with ourselves.

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* Not to oversell the yet-to-be New York Times best seller Eden, Indeed: Tales, Truths and Fabrications of a Small Town Boy, but the page numbers noted above refer to specific tales from the collection.

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

AUTUMN ON 89 – EDWARD’S (THE LAB-MIX) PERSPECTIVE

Lots of times, when my people say, “We’ll be right back,” they don’t come right back.  It makes me sad.  But this time, they took me along.  It was fun.

My people played a game called “Where’s Edward now?”  They took pictures of me.  Their friends guessed where I was.

Here I am at the McCloud Hotel.  (Someone guessed this.)

I like to go ride-ride in the car.

Here I am at Middle Falls.  (Someone guessed this!)

I adore Mom.

I’d like to play “stick” here.

Some places smell funny.

I get to walk with Mom.

I’d like to get this.

I’d like to play “stick” here.

I adore Dad.

Here I am at Sorensen’s Resort in Hope Valley.  (Someone guessed this.)

It is a cozy place.

Here I am at Monitor Pass.  (No one guessed this.)

I like to walk.

Mom and Dad went to a bookstore in Sonora.  The nice bookstore lady asked, “Where is Edward now?”

They let me come inside.

© 2017

Church of the Open Road Press

AUTUMN ON 89 – PART 3

Into the Rain Shadow

Here is the precept this series of three posts will set out to prove: California’s state route 89 is among the most beautiful highway routes in the entire country. 

On a chilly October morning, it’s tough to get out of bed, especially when being nuzzled by a canine heater.  The cozy cabin at Sorensen’s with its knotty pine interior seems an inviting place to hibernate until April.  I asked about this at the front desk but was informed that the resort is pretty much fully booked year round.

Given a distance yet to travel if we were to complete our exploration of California’s State Route 89, an early morning constitutional seemed in order.

The early rays of sunlight illuminate this juniper…

… but in the sheltered mini-canyon of this brook, rocks were layered in ice.

At Woodfords, Highway 89 heads south to Markleeville, seat of Alpine, https://alpinecounty.com/ California’s least populous county and perhaps the only county seat lacking full service banking.  Through town, the road rises to another of those 1800s scenes…

… then follows the East Carson River, another grand playground for the fisherpersons among us…

… where the autumn blossoms from roadside sage (?) contrast with the standing deadwood of a two-years-ago wild fire.  Still, a river runs through it.

Monitor Pass feels like little more than a rise, then fall, of the roadway.  It is marked by a weathering stone marker…

… set among aspens growing on either side of the route.

Clearing that copse of trees, it is clear we’ve moved to the rain shadow of the Sierra.  The lush forests of ten miles back are gone, replaced by largely barren hills dotted with stunted pines and juniper and scruffy brush.  Cattle country, if you don’t run to many of ‘em.

Off to the north, a fire lookout perches atop a wind-worn Leviathan Peak.  A rugged dirt road winds up the hillside.  The Subaru begs us to take it.

About two hundred yards short of the top, a substantial steel pipe gate blocks the road.  We disembark for a little hike.

The view from fire lookouts is always outstanding.  Go figure.

I figure out how to do a panorama shot on my Sony pocket camera only to return home to discover that the computer screen wide enough to do justice to the vista has yet to be invented.

Creeping back down the dirt track and resuming our tour, Highway 89 winds over and around dry, desert ridges, and, in its final few hundred yards, traces a stream course down to the floor of Mono County’s Antelope Valley.

Many times, I’ve seen motorcycle riders throttle through this canyon, ending up on US 395 bearing a grin bright enough that it could be seen through their full-face helmets.  I recall feeling that grin myself after running the route on one motorcycle or another.

But 395 is where this glorious state route ends. 

After more than 300 miles and having visited lumber towns, volcanoes, pristine meadows, snowfields, granite arêtes and countless turns and summits and tastes of history, the premise of the little tour I’d planned held true: State route 89 is among the most beautiful highways in the entire country.

The only question that remains is: How long until I can do this again, heading the other direction?  (…on the bike?)

© 2017

Church of the Open Road Press

AUTUMN ON 89 – PART 2

Ishi Country to Hope Valley

Here is the precept this series of three posts will set out to prove: California’s state route 89 is among the most beautiful highway routes in the entire country. 

Fifty-five years ago, Dad was hot on the trail of Ishi, considered the last of the unsullied native North Americans.  Ishi lived in the wilds of both Deer Creek and Mill Creek avoiding contact with the white settlers whose presence caused the demise not only of his Yahi (or Southern Yana) clan, but of all of the continent’s Indian population.  Just a hop, ski and a jump from our home in Chico, Dad would pore over maps and Al and Theodora Kroeber’s work and the journals of emigrants from a hundred years before, trying to discern where and how Ishi and his brethren lived; then with his kids, Dad would strike out into the wilderness to show us where it all happened. 

The one thing I remember is that one summer day, we stopped in at the Mill Creek Lodge where he bought me a root beer popsicle from the freezer on their porch.  Since that day, I’ve always wanted to spend the night in one of their rustic cabins.    This trip, we did.  Recently purchased by a couple of young partners, this off-the-beaten-path hide-away is worthy of a night or two. http://millcreekresort.net/

Highway 89 aligns with State Route 36 in these environs, and our day’s tour would find us motoring east to Lake Almanor, a lovely reservoir that now fills the Almanor Basin. http://www.lakealmanorarea.com/ I’d served at the principal for the little elementary school in Chester some twenty-five years ago, and my own pig-headedness prompted my unceremonious departure from that lovely place. Had I possessed the necessary maturity and professionalism, I’da likely stayed for a career.

Still, Almanor holds a favored spot in my heart for it’s high country surroundings, it’s history of both lumbering and mining, it’s limitless recreational opportunities, it’s clean air and the cleansing nature of it’s night skies.

After breakfast at Anna’s, my favored spot for a slice of Greenville life, and whizzing through Crescent Mills, we veered into the gravel parking area marked by a brown Forest Service sign. 

Countless times I passed a trailhead that I wouldn’t visit until this trip down 89.  Edward, the lab-mix was more than ready to stretch for a bit, and, perhaps lift a leg, were a black oak or digger pine available for the purpose.

The waterfall on Indian Creek dumps into a delightful pool that, I’m sure, come summertime, is thick with folks enjoying the cool waters.

This day, we receive a glimpse of the fall colors to come.

Above the opposite bank, an historic rail line shooting up toward Fall River Mills now supports both the BNSF and the UP.  I can hear the baleful whistle and the low rumble of truck on track echoing through the canyon.

Not far below is the picturesque Keddie Wye, an engineering marvel on the old Feather River Route from early in the 20^th century. http://www.american-rails.com/keddie-wye.html

CA 70 follows the Feather River Canyon between Oroville and Quincy.  In itself, Highway 70 is a classic route.  Dad thought he’d teach me how to drive on, until he realized I couldn’t keep his beloved Toyota FJ-40 centered in 70’s winding lanes.

State Route 89 joins this road at the Greenville Wye, heading east through the Plumas County Seat and past several tiny one-time bergs.  Along the way, we pass a unique 360-degree loop engineered by the Western Pacific to raise the rail line on a two percent gradient necessary to make the line from Reno out to Quincy, thence down to Oroville, a reality.  Another engineering marvel.  Can’t really see it from the road, although it does show up on the Subie’s GPS map in the dash.

At Blairsden, 89 breaks south through the historic lumber town of Graeagle – now given over to second homes and golf courses – with a cool general store and fine little café and a string of galleries and shops occupying repurposed 100-year-old company town houses.

South of Graeagle we depart 89, foregoing a trip through Calpine, to enjoy the pristine pools of the Lakes Basin, ringed in lofty granite. http://www.lakesbasin.com/ Gold Lake, itself, is a treasure and the Sierra Buttes are as stunning as any peaks in the range, except few people visit.  That said, the rustic lodges that dot the region are often booked a year in advance.

A previous hike to the lookout atop the Sierra Buttes is recounted here: http://thechurchoftheopenroad.blogspot.com/2011/08/nice-ride-nice-hike-sierra-buttes.html The hike is a dandy and the view a great reward.

In order to rejoin CA 89, we bear east at Bassett’s junction on CA 49 and cross Yuba Pass.

Just over the summit is a view spot filled this day with road repair equipment. 

Normally one gets a stunning view of the Sierra Valley with its pasture lands rimmed in worn, rolling ridges.

Reconnecting with our route, we pass this classic road sign…

…and get a taste of an old west that may still be alive.

Perhaps the most taxing length of State Route 89 is the section that runs through Truckee, down past Squaw Valley and along the west side of Lake Tahoe.  Even on a mid-week day in October, the traffic is heavy and, in some place stop-n-go. 

Truckee’s historic downtown has not been so touristified that it isn’t still a delight – just ask Paul McCartney who has been known to stand in with the band at the corner tavern.  Sadly, we’ve always missed these occasions. 

The UP’s California Zephyr runs on these tracks – although it used to run up the Feather River – and taking this train from Roseville over Donner for an overnight in Truckee is a delight.

Squaw, too, with its history of hosting the 1960 winter games is worth a gander.

We didn’t stop until we arrived at Tahoe’s classic view of Valhalla, the tiny island in the middle of Emerald Bay. 

Cut the population and traffic by 90 percent, and the property costs by about five times that, and I’d consider moving here.

The evening of the second day found us at the incomparable Sorensen’s Resort http://www.sorensensresort.com/ in Hope Valley.  A low October setting sun set the aspen leaves aflame…

… the cozy accommodations…

… and a chill we’d anticipate in the morning.  Glad I packed wool.

More on that in our final installment.

o0o

Next:  Autumn on 89, Part 3: Into the Rain Shadow

© 2017

Church of the Open Road Press