Lassen National Park
Yeah yeah, I know I haven't blogged anything about my trip to NZ, which was fabulous. Too many memorable events happened during the trip. I am overwhelmed by the daunting task of sorting through all the pictures and writing down all the stores in words. One day, I guarantee you, one day I will start telling you all the glorious stories. However, before I get to that, let me tell you about our trip to Lassen National Park.
If you have been following my blog, you probably know that my hubby and I have a tradition of visiting/camping at Yosemite every year. This year, we went beyond Yosemite. (In reality, we went to Lassen because it is closer and the trip was last minute thing). We car-camped the first night just outside of Lassen, at a town called Mineral. In the morning, we drive into Lassen and hiked up the Peak trail.
The Peak trail is an awesome trail. The trail head is located at above 8000 ft elevation. The trail is 2.5 miles long with 2000 ft. During the Memorial Day weekend, the trail was 50% cover with snow. That morning we started "early", before 10 AM. We hiked in snow up the first 1.5 miles with not too much elevation gain. Along the way we met several groups of people carrying their ski and snowboard equipments. They planned to ski/snowboard down the chute when they got to the top! As I said, the first 1.5 miles was pretty easy. Just snow. We had our trekking poles. When we got to the rest point before 0.9 mies (after 1 hour), we rested a little and took some pictures. Looking up, we knew we had a long way to go before getting to the top. So after 15 mins rest, we marched on! As we gained elevation, the wind grew stronger and the temperature dropped faster. We had our beanies, gloves, thermal layer, and fleece layer on. The sun was really strong and with the reflection from snow, I could hardly see anything without my sunglasses. Eventually (another hour), we got to the top. There, we enjoyed gusty wind and watched people get ready to ski down the chute. We took pictures. After a little while, we decided to head down as we could see more and more people were getting to the peak. On the way down (which was much faster), we stopped at a hiding place to eat our lunch and napped for 15 mins. It was a good nap as the surrounding was completely tranquil. Seeing that time was getting late (~past 1pm), we galloped down the hill by sliding down the snow-covered slopes. On our way down, we met more visitors, wearing T-shirts and shorts. We wondered how they survived up at the peak because the weather got much colder and it was windier in the afternoon. We met a family, whose father was determined to get to the top. The daughter, trailing back, was not really impressed with the trip. I am sure no one would when one hiked in the snow with jeans and sneakers. Back near the trail head, we decided to have some fun and slided down a slope on our butts. That was fun, but our butts and pants were all wet. Good that we had clothes to change.
With us getting back to the trail head before 2 p.m., we enjoyed a ice-cool latte at the store and continued with our touring of the park. We stopped by the Summit Lake and the museum at the North entrance. There are quite a few more hiking trails that we would want to check out, including Bu
mHell pass. I think Lassen is a place we would 
go back :)
If you have been following my blog, you probably know that my hubby and I have a tradition of visiting/camping at Yosemite every year. This year, we went beyond Yosemite. (In reality, we went to Lassen because it is closer and the trip was last minute thing). We car-camped the first night just outside of Lassen, at a town called Mineral. In the morning, we drive into Lassen and hiked up the Peak trail.
The Peak trail is an awesome trail. The trail head is located at above 8000 ft elevation. The trail is 2.5 miles long with 2000 ft. During the Memorial Day weekend, the trail was 50% cover with snow. That morning we started "early", before 10 AM. We hiked in snow up the first 1.5 miles with not too much elevation gain. Along the way we met several groups of people carrying their ski and snowboard equipments. They planned to ski/snowboard down the chute when they got to the top! As I said, the first 1.5 miles was pretty easy. Just snow. We had our trekking poles. When we got to the rest point before 0.9 mies (after 1 hour), we rested a little and took some pictures. Looking up, we knew we had a long way to go before getting to the top. So after 15 mins rest, we marched on! As we gained elevation, the wind grew stronger and the temperature dropped faster. We had our beanies, gloves, thermal layer, and fleece layer on. The sun was really strong and with the reflection from snow, I could hardly see anything without my sunglasses. Eventually (another hour), we got to the top. There, we enjoyed gusty wind and watched people get ready to ski down the chute. We took pictures. After a little while, we decided to head down as we could see more and more people were getting to the peak. On the way down (which was much faster), we stopped at a hiding place to eat our lunch and napped for 15 mins. It was a good nap as the surrounding was completely tranquil. Seeing that time was getting late (~past 1pm), we galloped down the hill by sliding down the snow-covered slopes. On our way down, we met more visitors, wearing T-shirts and shorts. We wondered how they survived up at the peak because the weather got much colder and it was windier in the afternoon. We met a family, whose father was determined to get to the top. The daughter, trailing back, was not really impressed with the trip. I am sure no one would when one hiked in the snow with jeans and sneakers. Back near the trail head, we decided to have some fun and slided down a slope on our butts. That was fun, but our butts and pants were all wet. Good that we had clothes to change.
With us getting back to the trail head before 2 p.m., we enjoyed a ice-cool latte at the store and continued with our touring of the park. We stopped by the Summit Lake and the museum at the North entrance. There are quite a few more hiking trails that we would want to check out, including Bu
mHell pass. I think Lassen is a place we would 
go back :)
posted by cookoolx2 @ 4:23:00 PM
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