Here is a sampling of my cell phone snapshots from the trip.
Three views of Lake Tahoe
Two views of the beach at South Lake Tahoe
Lassen Mt from the Visitors' Center
Lassen Mt from the Bumpass Hell Parking Lot
Distant view of Bumpass Hell fumaroles
Closer view of Bumpass Hell fumaroles
David and Sue standing in front of a snow bank just past Bumpass Hell
Sue and I tried to hike the trail up Brokeoff Mountain but only made it 0.7 mile because the trail kept disappearing into bigger and bigger fields of snow.
The ice bridges seen above and below are, of course, created as the melting snow trickles down the hillside. They can be eerily beautiful and also somewhat treacherous to the unwary hiker who breaks through the thin crust.
Sue and Ellie worked closely together one morning cleaning pine cones from the driveway into our rental cabin.
On a somewhat chilly and windy morning, I rode 7.2 miles uphill to the top of Lassen Pass. The road is a marvel of switchback, gentle grades, and fine engineering.
Many of the switchbacks are grainily shown in the background of this snapshot.
I took this snapshot of myself just after I reach the top of Lassen Pass. As you can see there is snow everywhere--but a bit of the bend in the downhill road is visible just to the right of the top of my head. I got so cold on the fast ride down the mountain that I had to take a half-hour hot shower back at the cabin to warm up again.
On of the best hikes in the park takes one up 700 verticle feet to the top of the perfectly symmetrical Cone Mountain. The mountain was created by volcanic pebbles and dust, blown straight up in a past explosion and settling to create the barren cone. Later, volcanic lava flowed from the base of the mountain and created huge, jagged fields of black volcanic lava. In a somewhat different direction the light volcanic dust settled to create lovely pastel shades of the Painted Dunes seen below:
One of the prettiest walks we took led to Mill Creek Falls. Here is a picture of Sue hiking up the trail with a field of golden Mule Ears to her left and unidentified blue flowers to her right.
The view of the falls was far more spectacular than a cell phone photo can capture, but here goes . . .
Right at the top of the falls, there was a terrific sampling of all the local wildflowers. This one (a Plain Mariposa Lily) was our favorite:
One of final hikes took us to Juniper Lake and Horseshoe Lake on the first day the road into that are was opened. This in Juniper Lake:
I especially liked this cabin on the lakeshore, apparently built largely from local rocks:
