Mt. Lassen II

I'm trying to go to some national parks. I bought an $80 annual pass that gets me in for free, but its up in October. In fact, one of the highlights of this weekend was getting in free rather than paying $20 like the other suckers. Its already paid for itself, but I can get in at least a couple more parks I think.

I spent the day at Mount Lassen. We hiked about 4 miles to see boiling sulfur mud pits or something. It was relatively flat, a Saturday, and the mud pits were cool, so the hike was pretty crowded. At any point you could see ten people on the trail in front of you.

I forgot to do my standard national park Yogi and Boo Boo impression. "Hey, Boo Boo. Let's get us some picinic baskets." "Oh Yogi. Ranger Smith isn't going to like that." A little disappointed in myself, but all the more reason to visit more national parks.

I still have my goal of running on a trail in as many national parks as I can. If I could run in ten, I could retire that goal. So far I've got Congaree, Bad Lands, Shenandoah, Mammoth Caves, Crater Lake, and Mt. Lassen. Mt. Lassen was kind of a tough one. I found a good 2.8 mile trail, but it was pretty rocky and downhill, so I had to go pretty slow. I'm not complaining because I'm getting pretty good at running slow, but it took quite a while to complete. I also took a cool picture of a small waterfall. Overall, this didn't have the sights of the other trail I guess, because I saw less than ten people and the other had hundreds.

To really explore national parks you probably should camp there. I know a lot do that. It seems uncomfortable though, and I'm not even considering it. I've had a little experience with camping in the past and I'm not seeing the attraction.  Anyway, by running you maximize the stuff you can see in less time. Even at a slow pace, I'm going a lot faster than hikers.