Plan as you go adventure

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

This morning I was really lazy. I didn’t leave for site seeing until about 9:30. My first stop was Subway Cave and it was only 3 miles up the road. This is a self guided tour of a lava tube that collapsed in a couple of places which is now the entrance and the exit. I think it is about 1300 feet long and has zero visibility. The cave actually is so smooth and rounded that is looks man made. I was kind of creeped out walking through this alone. Luckily for my piece of mind a group entered behind me and I never saw them but I could hear them.

When I was done with the cave I got on the computer and mapped out how long it would take me to drive to Warner Valley. You have to go all the way to Lake Amador to head up the valley. There was a fork in the road and one went to Juniper Lake and campground and the other to the resort and trailhead in the Warner Valley.

I decided to check out the camps at Juniper Lake. This turned out to be a real adventure. The road became a dirt and gravel road 7 miles before the Lake. I went ahead and braved the narrow dirt road but got pretty nervous when it was getting into muddy snow. I went ahead and got pretty close but the road was getting narrower with deep snow on each side. I finally saw only puddles on the road so I turned around in one of the few places wide enough. As soon as my car was pointing the other way a couple of guys came along in a big truck and told me I should be able to make it. I turned around to follow them and we only got maybe an eighth of a mile before the road was blocked completely by pickup trucks. These trucks probably belong to the snow removal workers because there were signs saying road work. When I turned around this time I had to back up onto the bank, but I was careful to keep my front wheels out of the snow so I wouldn’t lose traction. I had to leave just a couple miles short of the lake.

After my adventure in the muddy snow I decided to head up Warner Valley. There is a campground and resort at the end of this road and of course it ended up being a narrow dirt road also. When I got to my destination it was already 3:30 and I was at least 2 hours away from camp. I hiked to boiling springs lake which is a little over a mile and a half round trip. I couldn’t see the springs boiling but I could hear them and smell the sulphur. On my way back to the parking lot I spotted a deer and just after that some kind of ground bird, maybe quail? 

It was close to five when I left. I stopped for gas and headed for the south entrance to Lassen. It was only two days since I had been there but there was noticeably less snow. I tried to take pictures of the same places as Monday so that I would have something to compare.

It was 8 by the time I finally got back to camp and 9 before I ate. My nice juicy barbequed rib steak was worth it. I sat at the fire until it went out and headed to bed.

Tomorrow homeward bound.

Susie