Monday (Jun 29)
Damn that sun heats up the inside of van way too early in the day.
After being packed with so much noise and activity yesterday, the parking lot on Monday morning is back to its usual state of quiet emptiness. Going out and sitting outside in the shade of the van makes the heat a little more bearable, but inside, the van is cooking. When I pull the pillow away from the wall, it is quite hot to the touch from the outside heat radiating through the wall. First time I’ve wished I had a white van!
I leave this heating-focusing hellhole around 11 and make the short jaunt to Redding. I spend much of the drive heaping mental scorn on the dipshit Park Service cop who pulled me over last time and tried to make a federal case out if it – ha ha.
The Sandwichery is right on my route and gets good reviews, so I ease out of the traffic stream and grab a just-in-case sando. I won’t see much in the way of services for the next two days so it won’t hurt to stock up. Then I whip around the corner a few blocks to coffee at Brew, my go-to stop for wifi and a little dose of NorCal hipster vibe.
My plan is to create a little adventure for myself. Instead of the usual 44 east to Hat Creek, I take 299 east to Burney. I see a different part of Redding, which is as boring as the rest of it, but I cross the Sacramento River on a different bridge, which is kind of cool.
Today’s goal is to check out a BLM campground on the Pit River east of Burney. The direction 299 takes around here means that it is not quite on my way to anything, so I might not ever in my life drive down on this stretch of road unless I make a point to do so, so why not today? The directions to the campground are not awesome, but after a couple of false leads I find it and decide to stay. The notion of continuing onward to the cool shade at Hat Creek is enticing, but it’s probably 98° there also, and I will have better swimming here. Even in peak summer heat Hat Creek is too damn cold for me. So here, at 2:25, I’m putting down roots for the night.
WHUFU page for: Pit River Campground
On the Pit River, which is a pretty good sized river for Nor Cal in a drought. There are seven campsites and a picnic area next to the river.
It's almost exactly 2 steep miles of paved road from 299 to the campground.
We are in a HOT spell, 111° in Redding, 100° in the shade right here at my campsite, and I am not digging it.
Some of my neighbors give off an aggressive prison vibe, others are creepily too friendly. I guess there are normal neighbors also, but I haven't noticed them.
tonight:
On the Pit River, which is a pretty good sized river for Nor Cal in a drought. There are seven campsites and a picnic area next to the river.
It's almost exactly 2 steep miles of paved road from 299 to the campground.
We are in a HOT spell, 111° in Redding, 100° in the shade right here at my campsite, and I am not digging it.
Some of my neighbors give off an aggressive prison vibe, others are creepily too friendly. I guess there are normal neighbors also, but I haven't noticed them.
The Pit River is kind of a big deal around here turns out. For such a modest river, it drains a ridiculously large part of the northeast corner of the state. Its headwaters are in Goose Lake. It flows from the Warner Mountains to the mighty Sacramento via Lake Shasta – 2425 miles long the info sign says! Apparently there’s a dramatic canyon a little upstream from here which I want to check out tomorrow.
Unlike Hat Creek, the water seems a little murky here, not the most sparkling in the world, but it’s plenty clean enough to swim in. I’m picturing my little river running through 400 miles or so of cow pastures between Goose Lake and here, and it’s not a pretty picture. The spot next to the picnic area is the most alluring -a little backwater lagoon with a small rill of rapids feeding it from the far side. Up 50 yards is a more dramatic line of rapids, just water over rocks dropping into quiet water in a straight line about 70 yds long. I was just enjoying it, but my addled and slightly worrisome camping neighbor told me it the whole landscape is basically mining waste, the straight line of quiet water is an old mining trench. Makes sense.
Strange people here, some sketchy stuff going on with the camp host. The fee here is $8, but a few of the sites are leaving the envelope with $7 attached to the site post where you normally clip the receipt. I finally figured out the host must be working a deal where you can either drop $8 in the paybox as usual or you can pay the host, a nice but again slightly creepy old man with a cane $7. Not a big deal, it adds to the feeling that this is just a sketchy place.
There was a large group of campers that radiated hostility – I tried out my failsafe disarming grin and hello. I got a little pulse from the cute girl, but all her dudes had their hard looks gangster going.
But the most disconcerting camper was the big friendly fellow at the next site, with his young but very large un-leashed or collared pit bull. When I was swimming first time he walked right up and started talking. The dog was cool. The guy kept trying to convince it to follow him across the deep water to the other side, and the dog was just not into it. As soon as it couldn’t feel the bottom it was very unhappy and would come back and sit next to me. Mellow dog.
But when I went back to the falls at dark to watch the swallows the dude (and dog) followed me down, and it started getting weird. He finished his can of soda and tossed the can in the bushes, and I said that wasn’t cool and harangued him a little bit about respect for a public place. He got a little huffy, told me I wasn’t really looking at nature as I had claimed, since this was just a big mining ditch (see above :). Eventually I asked him to leave me alone, which he did and that was that. But is was a little creepy. In retrospect, I think the guy was dumb as a sack of hammers. I think the dog realizes he is the brains of the outfit, so he has to be poised and attentive and non-threatening to set a good example to his owner. But perhaps I am projecting a bit :)
Tuesday
Partly cloudy today, which is mitigating the evil summer sun somewhat. Here at 11am it’s still a little cooler in the van than the outside, so I’m keeping the door shut for now.
Why do I have phone bars here and almost nowhere else in the great emptiness that is northeast Cali? My guess is the power station a mile upstream. Just a guess…
Before this trip, I think I used the awning only two times in the five years I’ve had the van. We set it up for the three days of Hickey and I kind of got the point. It’s not just the little spot of shade outside the van, it’s the fact that it’s keeping the sun from blasting into the van interior. So here, in the 100° Pit River Canyon, I decide to trot it out again, for just one night. I think I like it!
When I made it out of the canyon to 299 (exactly 2 miles), I drove east another 2 miles to an overlook on the real Pit River Canyon, a pretty impressive site. Then backtrack a few miles to head to Mt Lassen. Yelp says there is a breakfast place with wifi in Burney, so I take another 6 mile detour to hop over to Burney and do that. The Blackberry Patch had a nice waitress, an adequate omelette, good coffee and good wifi, so good choice.
Soon I am driving along Hat Creek, one of the prettiest runs of water in all the land in my opinion. Won’t be sleeping there tonight, sigh, but I did stop at Bridge Picnic Area a while just to take it in for a while.
Flash my Senior Pass to the nice man at the park gate, then mosey my way up the south side of Mt Lassen to South Summit Lake.
WHUFU page for: Summit Lake South Campground
Lovely spot at 7,000'-ish on the south side of a little alpine lake. On the north side is Summit Lake North Campground which costs $2/night more. It has flush toilets and sinks with running water.
It has the shambling, kinda charming disorganization I associate with National Park campgrounds.
Sites are not very level, but there's a lake to swim in and you're in an awesome place!
tonight:
Don't know why I went for South Summit.
I learned later North Summit is well worth the extra $2 (or $1 for seniors :).
Went swimming and rather than going back for shoes, I ended up doing the loop walk around the lake in my flip flops. back to camp for dinner, then back to the lake for sunset/moonrise, in long pants and a hoodie – mosquitoes!!!
Wednesday
This is two days before the Fourth weekend, and the place is starting to fill up! Time for me to get going. I stop at my favorite pull-off, the Mud Pots, because I love them. It is very hot today. I do not stop at the Visitors Center because I do not want to walk across the parking lot in this heat.
If I could replay the day I would have stopped at the park Visitors Center, dined in antiseptic but air-conditioned comfort. But instead I exited the park, took a left and stopped at Childs Meadow, a run-down but still functioning resort a little east of the park entrance. It’s in a charming little valley with a postcard-perfect view of Lassen. Generally I enjoy the place and the nice lady that runs it, but today it’s so fucking hot I just can’t get comfortable and enjoy my food. I do mange to eat it though :) and it gets me so Susanville.