This is the ninth and last of a series of posts detailing hikes and walks I undertook in the course of a road trip in July 2016 that spanned 9 days and 3 states: CA, OR and NV (the last very transiently).
In the course of six years, while I lived and worked in the NYC area, I shunned driving, and during that period, undertook many interesting hikes and travels (many of them chronicled on this blog) relying solely on public transportation...from backyard hikes in the Hudson Valley, to trips to such National Parks as Glacier, Rocky Mountain, and Zion.
I moved to the Bay Area last year. I still try (successfully) to avoid getting into a car for every chore, and commute without driving four days a week, but I have also developed a love for the freedom of exploration that a car provides, especially in the vast and varied expanses of the West. This summer, I felt the time was right to venture beyond the immediate vicinity of the Bay Area, and experience at least some of what the rest of Northern California has to offer. And thus the idea of a solo road-trip came into being. After an initial thought of limiting myself to Lassen and Shasta, I grew ambitious and worked out a much longer itinerary that spanned 9 days and 3 states: CA, OR and NV (even though my foray into the last was for an hour or less).
In the course of this trip, I drove around 1450 miles, saw much of the Lower Cascades region, and traversed the 500 mile length of gorgeous Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway. I saw snow-capped volcanic peaks, vast plains, a lake more blue than anything I have seen - housed in a giant rock bowl scooped out by a volcanic eruption, a bejeweled night sky no longer occluded by bright city lights, boiling sulphurous mud - a surface demonstration of the turmoil in the bowels of the earth, more pristine alpine lakes than I could keep track of, majestic mountain ranges of varied and time-varying color, and so much else that is hard to describe in a manner that would do justice to the beauty of it all.
But more than that, this road trip provided me an opportunity to experience the sense of freedom that the vast wildernesses of the West have long inspired in wanderlust stricken souls...an experience that will stay with me.
In the course of six years, while I lived and worked in the NYC area, I shunned driving, and during that period, undertook many interesting hikes and travels (many of them chronicled on this blog) relying solely on public transportation...from backyard hikes in the Hudson Valley, to trips to such National Parks as Glacier, Rocky Mountain, and Zion.
I moved to the Bay Area last year. I still try (successfully) to avoid getting into a car for every chore, and commute without driving four days a week, but I have also developed a love for the freedom of exploration that a car provides, especially in the vast and varied expanses of the West. This summer, I felt the time was right to venture beyond the immediate vicinity of the Bay Area, and experience at least some of what the rest of Northern California has to offer. And thus the idea of a solo road-trip came into being. After an initial thought of limiting myself to Lassen and Shasta, I grew ambitious and worked out a much longer itinerary that spanned 9 days and 3 states: CA, OR and NV (even though my foray into the last was for an hour or less).
In the course of this trip, I drove around 1450 miles, saw much of the Lower Cascades region, and traversed the 500 mile length of gorgeous Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway. I saw snow-capped volcanic peaks, vast plains, a lake more blue than anything I have seen - housed in a giant rock bowl scooped out by a volcanic eruption, a bejeweled night sky no longer occluded by bright city lights, boiling sulphurous mud - a surface demonstration of the turmoil in the bowels of the earth, more pristine alpine lakes than I could keep track of, majestic mountain ranges of varied and time-varying color, and so much else that is hard to describe in a manner that would do justice to the beauty of it all.
But more than that, this road trip provided me an opportunity to experience the sense of freedom that the vast wildernesses of the West have long inspired in wanderlust stricken souls...an experience that will stay with me.
 |
| Night Sky at Crater Lake |
 |
| Crater Lake: Part reflective; part opaque in this view |
 |
| Lake Helen just starting to melt - Lassen Volcanic National Park |
 |
| Sulphur Works - Lassen Volcanic National Park |
 |
| Lake Tahoe - from the Nevada side |
No comments:
Post a Comment