Gone are the days of working in Redwood City. Right now I’m a week into my trip through the Western USA. I’ve already been driving around this region roughly three years ago. But there is more than enough space to drive to and see completely new things. Revisiting already visited places also makes sense, as the last time I was there most of it was covered in snow.
The first day of my trip was basically a driving day to get out of the already well-travelled region around San Francisco. I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge over Sacramento and Reno to a small town named Susanville.
Lassen Volcanic
After a good nights rest in Susanville, I started my first hiking adventure in the nearby Lassen Volcanic National Park. As the name suggest, the mountains in and around this park are all volcanoes. It was around a hundred years ago when there was a major eruption that caused massive damage to the surrounding area (ash fell down up to 200 miles away). The volcano that erupted was Lassen Peak, and that’s exactly where I was headed!
And the hiking begins
I parked the car at about 2600 meters above sea level and began the climb up the mountain. Lassen peak stands 10’463 feet tall (which are about 3200 meters in non-retarded units). A very steep climb with astonishing views as rewards along the way. To get to the absolute top of the volcano you had to go past a ranger that told an assembled crowd of children interesting stuff, cross a snow field and climb with the assistance of your hands the last few meters. As I was not the only one to reach the top I was even able to get a nice picture of myself on the top!
During the uphill climb (I know, a pleonasm) I was quite confused for a infinitesimally short time. I thought I heard a sprinkler (Rasensprenger, hehe), which really doesn’t make sense so far up in the mountains. As it turns out it was one of those funny insects that make strange noises flying around. But listen for yourselves:
Mount Shasta
The next National Park on my list was the Crater Lake National Park. But this park is too far away to do it right the next day but too close to dedicate a whole day for driving. So I was looking for something to fill the second, non-driving half of the next day.
The ranger that talked to the kids on Lassen Peak talked about the Mount Shasta on the horizon and that it is even taller than Lassen Peak (4’322 m above sea level). So that’s where I went and did two hikes the next day.
Heart Lake Trail
The first shorter hike offered a nice few of Mount Shasta. Shortly after starting on this trail there was a sign that informed me that I’ll be entering private property. As we are not in Texas (and a lot of other people were hiking there as well) I did not have to fear being shot by the property owner (see “stand-your-ground” law). The main difference to hiking in National or State Parks I noticed was, that the trail is not marked as clearly. You could chose between a multitude of trails going up the hill. Some of them were more direct, some less, but all of them ended up at the same viewpoint.
Panther Meadows Trail
As the day was still young when I finished hiking down from the first hike and the road up to that hike was a really nice experience, I decided to do another hike. So I checked the map and saw that there is a nice and curvy road up Mount Shasta which has a trail head at its end. Obviously, that’s where I went. While the hike itself was not the most scenic so far it was quite taxing and depleted my energy reserves as intended.
Uber Hike
Along the hike I saw another hiker walking somewhere which looked like it could be another way down, so I followed her and we got stuck at a cliff without a safe way down. Thus, we had to turn back and take the way down which we came up. Lucky for her, my car was parked sooner along the way back than hers and she got to experience a nice ride to her car =)
Interlude: Zhe CAR
What’s to say?: “Ich habe mir gegönnt” describes it probably best.
At first I looked at cheaper cars but went up the price ladder each time I had another look. At the end I decided to just go with an affordable and epic sporty car. After a quarter of my trip I can say every dollar spent on this car (and the peace-of-mind insurance) is a dollar well-spent.
Each time you return to it you can be sure that you return to one of the most beautiful cars (if not the most beautiful) of the parking lot.
Every time you floor the pedal to overtake some slow vehicle you have a grin on your face.
Interior
The interior and its controls are perfectly designed for controlling all the essentials while driving. The only thing you might miss from European cars are gear changers on the steering wheel. But you don’t really miss them with this car. The only time you would need such a thing would be downhill to comfortably shift to a lower gear to be a little gentler with your brakes. But the Dodge Challenger does that automatically when you drive downhill and begin to brake. It automatically selects a gear that will keep your speed and you can drive down those curvy roads without braking in most corners. Although, all the cars unsecured contents might be misplaced after you finished your descent =)
Crater Lake
The second National Park on my trip was the Crater Lake National Park. I have been there before, but it was later in the year and everything was covered in snow. The rim road along the craters edge was not open then, but this time it was. A little fun-fact (or at least interesting fact): The Crater Lake is the deepest lake of North America. The lake is – as the name once again suggests – in the crater of a volcano and is 594 meters deep.
Cleetwood Cove Trail
Would I have been there a few days sooner, I would have been able to take a boat to one of the island. The steep hike down to the waterfront is still worth it, even though the pictures are not that beautiful as from above. In real life it looked better. The pictures below could have been taken at Lake Constance or Lake Lucerne, but I promise that they are from Crater Lake.
Ranger Tour
While driving around the rim, I noticed some wild fires to the South. After I had stopped at every point I marked on my map I still had some energy and time left and I decided to do one of the easy hikes advertised in the newspaper you get at the park entrance. It turned out to be a very lucky decision to make. After a few hundred meters in, I stumbled over a small group of people that were lead by a ranger.
Entertaining an Engineer
She talked about a lot of interesting stuff. Some of it was of less importance to me like the names of the trees, but other facts could even entertain an engineer. We were all adults, but she asked us questions like we were in school. For example, she pointed at trees and asked us why the moss starts only a few feet above ground. Or she pointed at other trees which grew on a slope. She asked why they first grow at an angle and after 1-2 feet start to grow perfectly vertical. I will not tell you the answer, but both answers are closely related =)
After I got back to my car after the ranger-lead tour I drove back up to th rim again. You will never guess what happened then. It was something spectacular. It never happened to me in the previous 3.5 months here in the States. I’m not going to tell it to you now, but rather in my next blog post… =)
