I’m typing this on the tail end of Thanksgiving Weekend 2015, and it has certainly been an (unexpectedly) eventful few days.  Enough so to lead to a few entries in the travel blog, this being the first.  Just as a head’s up: it’s late.  I’m exhausted.  So if my writing proves poor, bear with me.

On Black Friday I decided to head up to my favorite local stomping grounds: Lassen National Park.  There were a few reasons for this.  First, it was Black Friday, and I wanted to get as far away from all that entails as humanly possible.  Second, I recently purchased a new snowboard (and a new Jeep for that matter), and I’ve been itching to test the new gear out in the snow.  There was only about a foot of snow on the ground at the time I was up Lassen, but that was all the excuse I needed to break away from my normal routine and head to the mountains.

Lassen in winter has its own unique beauty.  While Lassen rarely ever has actual “crowds” of people, the summer tourists that make their way through the park are long gone, leaving behind only a select few remaining visitors who fall into two camps.  These camps add to the character of the winter experience, and really make Lassen one of my favorite winter time haunts.

The first camp of visitors are the stereotypical Californians who view snow as a novelty and just want to spend the day sledding down the hill near the front entrance parking lot while wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants.  They tend to be fairly obnoxious, although the kids experiencing sledding for the first time tend to be pretty cute, and they are terrible wintertime drivers.  We’re talking driving 5 miles per hour over the tiniest patches of ice because ice is scary or something.  It’s hilarious to watch.

The second camp of visitors (of which I would arrogantly count myself) are the local winter enthusiasts.  The second camp tends to know how to drive through the snow, is adventuring through the near empty park with snowshoes or cross country skis afoot, and tend to be incredibly friendly and chatty with one another.  I found no problem during my time up the mountain sparking a conversation with a couple from Mount Shasta who were spending the day cross country skiing through the park.  I, on the other hand, was snowshoeing my way into the backcountry with snowboard strapped to back, smile ear to ear.

I hiked my way up past the sulfur works and towards Ridge Lake.  The deeper I got into the park, the more alone I found myself, and the quiet of winter proved truly serene.

Finally, when I felt I had gone high enough up the trail to get a good test run of the board, I switched out my snowshoes, strapped on the board, and charged down the mountain, using the prints I had made hiking up as a guide as to where to go.  It was an exhilarating experience to be back on a board, but fairly short-lived.  Like I said, there was only a foot or so of snow on the mountain, and there’s only so much you can do with so little snow.  I will need to wait longer before I can really start tearing up the mountain.  In any event, it was a great day out in the snow, and I’m so happy that I pulled myself away from my turkey induced coma and the crowds of Black Friday civilization to head up the mountain and experience nature at her best.  By the time I made it back though I was nursing some serious blisters, and was happy to hunker down at home with some hot brandied cider.  After all, I had the whole weekend to recuperate, right?

Cheers,

Rob