About 9 months ago, we planned a hiking trip with my dad to Northern Italy. We wanted to go hiking in the Dolomites, where one can hike from lodge to lodge--sleeping in a soft bed and eating a delicious Italian meal after a long day of hiking. Needless to say, that got cancelled.
So we were left with 2 weeks off and no plans. We decided to take another roadtrip, this time staying in California and exploring the Sierra Nevada Mountains. And instead of joining us, my dad focused on finishing up packing for his cross-country move.
We started the trip in Lassen Volcanoes National Park. This park is only about 4 hours from our house--similar to Yosemite--but much less visited. The park itself was great--beautiful mountain scenery as well as some interesting geothermal areas.
We took a couple of great hikes--the first one was 12 miles long and nearly 3000 feet in elevation to Juniper, Indian and Horseshoe Lake. Both kids did great, with Ethan's gait much improved over last year, and Alaina mostly keeping up.
The following day, we climbed to the top of Lassen Peak. This hike was about 2500 feet in elevation gain and 5 miles. The views from the top were stunning.
On our third day, we enjoyed checking out the thermal features of the park on the Bumpass Hell Trail (yes, this is really its name!) and a shorter hike to Terrace, Shadow and Cliff Lakes. All amazing.
After several long days of hiking, we were ready to relax for a bit. Our next stop was Lake Tahoe. We had a couple of nice days at the beach--the weather was really warm.
Our final stop was Sequoia/King's Canyon National Park. Jason and I had not been to this park for at least 13 years, and I was eager to go return and explore. It did not diappoint--but wow, it is huge! Lots of driving. In any event, we took some great hikes there as well. Jason's favorite was to Emerald Lake (but not my favorite, as at one point the trail hugged the cliff with a 3000 ft drop-off into a canyon below!).
I liked the Mist Falls Trail--though it was a long drive from our lodging.
We were lucky to see a bear on this trail as well as the trail to Emerald Lake. In both instances, the bears paid us no attention and weren't scary at all.
Much scarier was a rattlesnake sighting!
We also hiked to Weaver Lake. We had planned to hike to the top of Mitchell peak on our last day, but unfortunately when we work up it was really smoky. Many fires had broken out due to rare lightening storms and the smoke had finally made it up the mountains. So instead we packed up and left a day early. Honestly, we felt fortunate that we had as many beautiful, clear days as we did--we know from experience that mountain traveling in August is risky (See Yellowstone 2018).
Anyway, the trip was not quite Italy, but not too bad either. We are fortunate to have such beautiful places nearby. Maybe next year we will make the Dolomites. 🤞🤞🤞
