Boondocking went fine last night. No one bothered us at all. Last night I heard a noise and looked out the window and saw a deer walking by. It must have known it wasn't deer season because I think that it was a favorite spot of deer hunters. There was even a small memorial to a couple of deer hunters who died, but none to the dead deer of course.
When I arrived at the park entrance I found out that the trail to Bumpass Hell was under several feet of snow. I was quite disappointed, but drove through the park anyways. I'll have to be satisfied with seeing Devil's Kitchen, Boiling Lake and the Sulfur Works. And, I'm sure the rotten egg smell would have been the same. Lassen is quite a nice park. It's much less well-known than the big name parks, so it also tends to be much less crowded. I did get to see some more steaming vents and mudpots and I managed to find a real nice hike that started down lower. It soon climbed up though and there was quite a bit of snow to walk over. It was fairly hard-packed so it wasn't too bad. It ended at a place called Paradise Meadows, which was a big meadow with several streams going through it, but right now it is still pretty well covered in snow. It was a gorgeous blue-sky day though so everything looked great. I would definitely recommend Lassen to anyone though I would go a little later in the season if you like to do more hiking.
We made it to the north end of the park and it was still fairly early. Neither of the campgrounds at that end looked all that nice, so I finally decided to check out a few outside the park. I went to one on Lake McCumber that sounded like it might work, but when I got there it looked like there were only walk-in sites. Since we were at a lake (reservoir actually) I got Abbey out for a walk. When we walked up further I saw that there was a nice little campground for RVs as well. So that is where we're spending the night. Tomorrow I plan to head into Redding, the nearest decent-sized city, to hopefully get on the internet to take a look at some possible alternatives for our next destinations. I know I won't get any sympathy from anyone, but that is one of my few stressors I have - figuring out where to go next all the time. It does end up taking a fair amount of my time, but I guess it's a small price to pay and I'm willing to deal with it for the benefits.
The other thing I have to do is figure out a place I can have my mail sent in the next week. I haven't had it forwarded in 3 weeks. Hopefully I don't have any important bills or anything waiting. Such is life on the road.
Sulfur Works
Lassen Peak
Hat Creek on way to Paradise Meadows
A Glacial Erratic