Northern California

A few years back Hat Creek Rim went up in smoke, which presents a real problem for hikers: the area is extremely dry since the ashy soil and basalt hold no surface water, and it also gets very hot here during the summer. Fortunately for me there was a nice cloud cover when I did this section.

A mile upstream from 125-foot Burney Falls Burney Creek is a shallow slow-moving silty body of water. But springs in the creek bed feed the creek as it heads towards the falls, increasing its original volume several times over. You can see more gushing springs in the wall, a result of aqueduct-like lava tubes created by ancient magma flows.

Burney Falls

The weather had been mostly dominated by sunny skies and dry conditions since I began the trip (except for one day in the Grand Canyon when it snowed), but a series of late-season storms hit me throughout my time in northern California, Oregon, and Washington, including this one that actually dropped some snow/frozen rain near Grizzly Peak.

An overlook from near Grizzly Peak.

With Ranger Brett Mizeur, who I had met in Spring 2006 and who put me up for the night when I was in Castle Crags State Park.

The backside of Castle Crags, a geological granite freak among an otherwise volcanic landscape.

Mt. Shasta, the second tallest volcano in the Lower 48 at 14,179 feet, at dusk with the lights of Shasta City in the foreground.

Shasta, and all the Cascade volcanoes for that matter, are geographical freaks: they stand above the surrounding mountains by as much as 7,000 feet, and their volume is mind-boggling. I could see Shasta for about 200 miles of the PCT, all the way from just north of Burney Falls State Park to Crater Lake National Park.

Enjoying the evening light in the Trinity Alps Wilderness.

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