After Thunder Valley, we drove on toward Nevada, hoping to stop for a day or so at the Boca forest service campground where we had over-nighted once before. The dam was being repaired (!), the reservoir was way down, and the campground mostly deserted except for a compound of presumably well-armed "patriots." We headed back I-80 to route 89, which would take us, through beautiful northern California country, to Lassen Peak Volcanic National Park. By way of such places as Sierraville and Quincy, the Cottonwood Creek forest service campground, Greenville, and more. Beautiful creeks, gorges, forests of tall conifer, occasional lakes, great green valleys, all in higher country, 4,000-5,000 feet mostly. We visited Lassen on a family road trip in 1990, and I even climbed the "peak," a big hill with a well-defined summit trail (
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2012/02/lassen-peak-1990.html). Traffic en route to, and in Lassen, was unexpectedly light. The campgrounds nonetheless were full, all reserved far in advance, so after doing the park road and dumping and filling, we headed back east to Susanville. All this on June 18-20.
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At the Cottonwood Creek campground; the only open forest service campground we encountered; all reserved commencing June 19th; we parked next to the wood pile and had a whopper of a fire |
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Next night, we found a spot at the (mostly) closed Greenville FS campground |
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Lassen Peak; but for the ice, would have made one of those really great "reflection in the lake" pix |
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Other travel blogs don't bring you the insight and the detail you see here: draining pit toilets at a trail-head parking lot |
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High country |
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Great natural beauty in northern CA |
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