Geoff and Jenn's 1998 California Trip
Day
8: Mt. Shasta and The Lava Beds NP
Saturday, October 3rd, 1998
We awoke to our caboose night stay and headed
out towards Mt. Shasta, after a brief stop in town at a local
bakery that unfortunately was closing down that very day.
 |
The
two cones of Shasta
|
We headed up the slopes
of the grand mountain, suprised to see that the volcano
actually consisted of two distinct volcanic craters. We
reached as far as the road would go at Panther's Meadows,
under the guide of a William Sullivan hike book (our
copies are greatly used). |
| At Panther's
meadows we saw quite a large number of unknown
wildflowers that did not ring a bell with our common ones
from farther north. There was a fragrant mint just in
bloom, pussy feet, xxx, and a variety of other more
common flowers such as purple aster, alpine heather and
paintbrush. The meadows were extremely fragile, but I
still was able to get off quite a large number of shots. |
 |
Some
Paintbrush Gathering Sun
|
 |
A
Shasta Meadow
|
 |
Geoff
enjoying some bread at Panther's Spring
|
 |
A
Fallen Tree Bleeding Paintbrushes at Panther Meadow
|
The meadow was fed by a
beautiful stream that originated with a mountain spring
rising from the ground. Along the trail were numerous
peculiar unnatural positionings of rocks and branches
that appeared almost religious at times in their intracy.
We speculated that it must be some mythical beast that
still roams the hills of Mt. Shasta. |
 |
Shasta, as
we drove away...
| After our
alpine hike, we headed back down into town for a quick
Burger King bite before heading out to our next stop:
Caving at Lava Beds National Park. Along the way, we
passed by two large water refuges whose lakes were filled
with ducks, pelicans and an assortment of other fowl and
birds. We quickly determined that today was also the
first day of duck hunting season, as evidenced by the
droves of hunters. Every few seconds it seemed we would
pass a large F150 or Suburban truck (usually white) that
was stuffed with nets of bird decoys and a friendly
looking dog, while being driven by three guys dressed in
camoflage. We had a good laugh at a local RV park in the
middle of nowhere that was stuffed pack full of hunters'
trucks. Even the few motels we passed all had no vacancy
and their parking lots were filled with trucks |
 |
Cool
Hat! (Shasta is in the distance)
|
 |
Jenn
descending into the bowels!
|
 |
Us
at the Garden Bridges Lava Cave
|
Eventually we made it to Lava Beds NP where we
immediately began our caving. The caves here are numerous and
quite varied -- giving us sights significantly different from the
caves in middle Oregon and Mt. St. Helens' Ape Cave. Along the
way we stopped at Golden Dome cave (with a steep drop into the
cave and an interesting pillar near its conclusion), Hopkins
Chocolate cave (with its chocolaty sides and a historic graffiti
carving from 1892), and Sunshine cave(where there are a number of
fall throughts, including some open aired ones before the
entrance). Outside of the main loop we stopped at two more caves:
Valentine cave, with its characteristic side groves and a number
of reconnecting side channels, and then, as dusk was settling in,
I made a quick trek down into Skull cave, a gigantic cave of huge
proportions that had solid ice at its bottom.
 |
Geoff
and Em in one of the caves
|
 |
Jenn
and Em standing on a Lava Bridge
|
From Lava Beds, we then headed back towards
Klamath Falls to make our final night's stay. The trick was to
avoid the endless number of birds darting around as dusk fell
into the landscape, and then to find a motel that was not filled
to capacity with the migrating hunters.
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