Day 33

 

July 19 - Donner Memorial State Park, CA

Cassandra and I are both so excited to get back on track with the planned portion of our trip tomorrow as we head to Donner Memorial. This drive will be so much nicer than then 9+ hour trip we had initially prepared for from harbinger farm, which is such a relief. We have some cooler-planning to do since we intend to keep our bikes strapped to the car at Donner for the single-night stay - just a bit less to pack back onto the car so we can leave early from Donner for a long drive to Antelope Island State Park, UT, which is another long, 500 mile drive. 

We packed up the campsite slowly, then made our way through the southern portion of Lassen to check out Bumpass Hell with all its geothermal features. None of us wanted to leave this place - it was exactly what all of us were looking for and needed - however, we are excited to continue on our journey. The drive through the park was stunning and beautiful; some of the features reminded me of Crate Lake, especially the pristine, high altitude alpine lakes as we climbed higher and higher through the park. 

We arrived at the trailhead, but it was flooded with people and cars, so we decided to move on and check out the Sulfur Works trail at the southern-edge of the park, which was relatively empty and quiet. The hike was short (to everyone's liking) and smelled like sulfur.

We saw boiling water and mud pots, which was so neat, and I wish we could have hiked closer to them (but that would have been very dangerous!). 

Ev and Til were pretty beat, so we didn't go too far along the trail (it was uphill the entire hike) before heading back to the car. 

We arrived at the Visitor Center and watched a short film about the fascinating history of Lassen. We learned about the eruptions through the last 400+ years and what this landscape may look like in the future. It is amazing being in a place that is so dynamic and always changing. That's not the case in many natural locations (especially back East). 

Driving through the southern boundaries of the park and through the Lassen and Plumas National Forest to the south and east of the park, we were confronted by the devastation of the Dixie Fire. I felt deep sadness and emotional pain imagining what it was like in this place while the fire was raging. Fire is obviously important in alpine forest, but not this kind of fire. We moved through miles upon miles of burnt forest either waiting to be logged or already stripped of its usable lumber. I found myself striving to imagine this drive just last year when it was unburned. Eventually, our drive brought us through Greenville, a small historic town in the Plumas National Forest that was completely devastated by the fire.

We travelled down a razed Main Street and ate lunch at a coffee-food truck in town, chatting with the owner who opened this truck at the location of her old café that was burned down. She said it was the worst two months of her life, and life for everyone around there was up in the air. They were slowly rebuilding, but it will take lots of time and money to get life back to something sustainable.

We likely wouldn't have been able to make it through these roads just a couple months ago because they would have been impassable - it took us a long time to make it through as it was due to road construction and timber work all throughout the drive.

Finally, we made it through the burn zone and approached the Tahoe National Forest, where Donner Memorial is situated. There were huge, straight pine-trees everywhere! Driving today brought the reality of forest fire into our eyes and experience. One can't escape or avoid fire in the west, and we experienced that first hand the past few days.

We arrived at Donner Memorial in the evening and slowly made dinner. We set up as little as possible, and the kids spent most of the evening riding their bikes around. 

This place seems amazing and expansive, and I wish we had more than one night to explore here (Brad said it was a pretty cool spot, too!). 

I guess we will just have to plan to pass through here again another time!