Day 103: Lassen Learned — Ugly American Adventures

8/27/2023

Section: Milepost 1371 to 1343

Total Trail Miles: 1597/2650

Distance: 28.4 Miles

Moving Time: 11:13 hrs

Elevation Gain: 3478 ft

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Today, I officially gave up on my coffee purge. I really tried and, honestly, I think I did pretty damn well. 103 days of *almost* no coffee, but in the box that my parents had sent was what my dad called “poor man’s mocha” which was a pack of ritzy hot chocolate mixes and Starbucks Via packets. This morning, I mixed these two things together with some hot water and *chef’s kiss* what a wonderful thing to start the day with.

Today’s stage starts on the banks of Hat Creek with a 1200 foot climb up the southern flank of Badger Mountain where it passes into Lassen National Park at the 4 mile marker. From here, the trail gets very fast as it meanders east and turns south in the shadow of the large cinder cone - Prospect Peak. At 11 miles, the trail junctions with the Bear Lakes and Rainbow lake trail, in quick succession, before meandering along the banks of several lakes, including Lower Twin and Swan lake. At mile 16.5, the trail crosses Kings Creek and climbs a bit before making a steep descent down Flatiron Ridge to a road near Drakesbad Trailhead road. The path climbs up off the road and eventually reaches Boiling Springs Lake and Little Willow Lake at mile 22.5 where it leaves Lassen National Park behind and starts the long descent down to Domingo Springs Campground which was our destination for the night.

We were up, fed, caffeinated and out by 5:18 this morning - what a rush! The older couple left just ahead of us. Gotta say - bringing your food into your tent for the night goes against everything i’ve ever been told about backpacking but it does make getting going in the morning a whole lot more speedy. Still don’t think we are going to do it, but I get it. Lightweight was still asleep when we left but we figured we would see her somewhere along the way given her pace. We climbed for the first 2 hours of the day, appreciating the cool morning air as we exerted ourselves. Along the way, we spotted a few tents tucked back into the trees at the boundary of the park boundary. Just before entering the park, we passed the older couple and said good morning to them. They seemed nice, if a little standoff-ish. At the park boundary the light was just starting to come up and we stopped for a quick picture in front of the backcountry sign before heading in.

From the northern boundary of the park we noted two things. One - the trail was smooooooth and so fast. We cooked through the 1st half of the day. The second was that the fire damage was apocalyptic. Lassen was absolutely devastated by the fire but, despite that, life is already starting to come back and the small but silver lining is that the fire opened a lot of views onto the mountain itself throughout the park. We sped east and then south. As the day warmed up we started to notice lots of bees tucked into flowers and leaves on the foliage along the side of the trail. I had forgotten that bees do this - they don’t always go back to their hives at night and will sometimes sleep inside flowers. Amanda and I stopped to peek into a few flowers where little bee butts could be seen poking out. I don’t know why but this little discovery put us both in a great mood.

At about 4 hours in, we came alongside Lower Twin Lake and said hello to a set of weekend backpackers who had stayed by the lake that night. At Swan lake, a little bit on, we stopped for some snacks - Skittles and teriyaki sticks, which Amanda and I now affectionately call “Pocky Yackies.” Lightweight caught up to us and we chatted for a while before she took off ahead of us. We followed her as the trail dove off a small plateau and entered the King Creek canyon with Mt. Lassen rising up above us. The trail crossed a few marshes which had encouraged a bit of over growth on the trail before reaching the main crossing of King Creek at mile 16.5. Here Amanda stripped off her shoes to cross while I found a nifty little log up the creek and a ways to cross over. On the other side, we found Lightweight waiting and we stopped for lunch. A group of hikers from San Jose came down an intercepting trail and peppered us with questions as we ate and we talked with them for 15 minutes. They also wanted some pictures with us so we got to our feet to take part and then we went our separate ways up the trail.

The trail climbed out of King Creek to the top of Flatiron Ridge, gaining about 300 feet in the process. The climb wasn’t bad but the day was, again, in the low 90’s which made every step take just a bit more effort. At the top of Flatiron ridge we stopped to take in the views. The burn was bad but, honestly, not as bad as some of the NOBO’s had made it seem. Everything was bright green. After the junction with Bench Lake trail the PCT nosed down and made a quick drop to Drakesbad hot springs and Warner Valley Hot Springs. From here, we climbed back up to Boiling Springs lake where Amanda and I stopped to go look at the boiling lake of volcanic mud. It smelled strongly of sulfur and you could clearly see places where people had walked past the “Do Not Cross” signs to get down closer to the banks of the lake. Not really sure what was down closer that you couldn’t see from the viewpoint but whatever it was, it probably wasn’t worth dying in boiling water for.

After some pictures and a few carrots, we muscled on. There wasn’t really a predetermined endpoint for today. We would be making it to Chester tomorrow so, as had been the case in many pre-NERO days before, the idea was to bite off as much as we could for our exit day tomorrow. We continued on and reached Little WIllow Lake about an hour later. We considered staying there but Nicola had told us he had stayed in the area on his journey north and, in the night, had woken up to a sound so strange and eerie he had packed up and left at 2 in the morning. Multiple comments on FarOut confirmed hearing something similar. Between that information and the multiple large, dead trees surrounding the semi-established campsite, we decided to eat dinner there and push on 5 miles to Domingo Springs Campground. We set up on a flat tent pad and I went in search of the spring that had become very obscured by the mid-summer overgrowth. Along the way I made friends with a few frogs. As we sat and ate dinner a few familiar faces came through including Skull and Crossbones and the couple we had met two days before, just south of the little hydroelectric power station. We talked a bit but both kept moving. Tonight we had some Peak Performance meals which are awesome because they require very little water and are almost all over 1000 calories.

After dinner we packed up and continued our hike through the burn. It was definitely hotter on the south side of the park but pockets of green pervaded here and there. We went up and over two small humps in elevation but eventually reached the long descent. Just at the inflection point, before heading down, I got some reception and called into Chester to reserve a hotel as I had heard it might be difficult to find one. I connected with the Antlers Hotel and reserved a night as we passed the younger couple setting up for the evening.

From here we reached what I think of as the “Zombie March” at the end of the day. Basically your body is done and really wants to stop but you just keep moving your legs forward. The sun eventually set as we neared the bottom of the descent and we started looking for the little exit trail out to the campground. At 27.6 miles, I found what appeared to have been a trail and we bushwhacked our way out to CR311 where we walked the last quarter mile into Domingo Springs Campground. At the campground Amanda set up the tent while I went out to the spring itself to fill up. We took full advantage of the picnic table to organize our things and I enjoyed a delicious stout I had packed from Old Station. Since we had already eaten dinner, we wasted no time in crawling into the Big Agnes and passing out.