July 11, 2021

Volcano Week: Hiking Mt Lassen, Broken Top, Diamond Peak & Mt McLoughlin

I often have to go to Oregon for work. Typically, I fly, face pressed against the window (pre-covid) looking down as we float over many pointy volcanoes. This is the story of the time I decided to drive instead. It is a long, long drive, that I made even longer by detouring to volcanoes. This is Jessica’s Volcano Week Menu, July 2018 edition!

It’s volcano week
So many earth zits to climb
Oregon is 🔥

Mount Lassen, Lassen Volcanic National Park

July 7, 2018

Mount Lassen makes for a nice breakfast volcano as you can drive most of the way up to the peak, only summiting the final 2000 feet of elevation. I made it to the visitor center around midnight, slept in my car, and was up before dawn to continue the drive to the trailhead. Did not quite get a sunrise-summit, but sunrise colors were had. Bonus, my cousin Pepi met me in the morning for his very first volcano!

Breakfast volcano
Lemurians in background
Better than wheaties

After summiting Lassen, I hopped back in the car and headed north to Bend. After 5 hours of cruise control, I set up camp at Devil’s Lake Campground. I was thankful to have brought the mosquito net for my hammock, because it was swarmy at dusk. This lake is EXTREMELY turquoise and I highly recommending pulling over to take a look (and a dip) because the color will bring serenity to your dark soul, guaranteed.

Avoid tree shadows
When swimming in glacial lakes
It’s extra cold there

Broken Top and No Name Lake

July 8, 2018

If your idea of a magical paradise is miles of brightly colored & widely distributed wildflowers, a summit with panoramic views of snow-capped volcanoes and thousands of butterflies fluttering all over the place… Broken Top checks all those very specific boxes. Summit butterfly kaleidoscopes (the butterfly version of swarm is kaleidoscope, no joke) were a strange and re-occurring phenomenon on this trip. Apparently this was an invasive outbreak of the California tortoiseshell butterfly, cause unknown. Something due to ecosystem dynamics — Sorry, Oregon.

Mt Bachelor (from Broken Top trail):
I cannot believe
This big guy is still single
Mount Bachelor fiiiine

Behold Broken Top
Headless and missing his peak
Blew to smithereens
(Actually, the top of this stratovolcano was glacially eroded, but you get the point.)

Butterflying hour
Takes place around 2 PM
Hella Bumperflies

After a blueberry work week volcano intermission (which included a wild blueberry expedition), I resumed volcano climbing the following weekend.

Diamond Peak

July 14, 2018

Volcano #3 of self-proclaimed Volcano Week consisted of charging through swarms of mosquitoes for the first 4.5 miles, then painfully slowly making our way up through sliding scree (2 steps up, 3 steps slide back down), to reach the summit of Diamond Peak. Swarms of mosquitoes were replaced by another summit kaleidoscope of butterflies. Got to do some fun glissading (read: sliding on your ass in the snow) on the way down on the leftover snow!

How does she climb volcano after volcano, you wonder — a haiku:
I’m in a healthy
Intimate relationship
With ibuprofen

Mount McLoughlin

July 18, 2018

The last of the volcano series!

Alltrails clocked me at 9.1 miles rather than the 8.4 it states. Most of the vert takes place in the last 1.5 miles, she’s a doozy! Going up I stuck to the rocky ridge to the climbers left of the trail rather than try to slide up the scree. 3 hrs up and 2.5 hrs down. On 7/18/18, there was a fair amount of wildfire haze in the sky. Saw Shasta for a while before she disappeared. Solid volcano! 🙂