20 Miles in Lassen Volcanic National Park

I'm just four miles into my long run and every step feels impossible. The black volcanic sand makes even the most gentle of climbs a struggle. I'm grumpy and my legs are tired. I try to push away the dark thoughts as I slow to a walk.

Just as I'm about to resign myself to a full day of power-hiking, I crest the gentle hill and finally, for the first time in over an hour, I'm going downhill!! I hop, skip, and bound down effortlessly. Angels sing. I cry out a woohoo of joy. Things begin to look up from here, thank goodness.

Badger Flat

Every few miles, we reach a new trail junction. Each turn provides another checkpoint on our route, breaking up the miles and miles of charred trees and helps my mental game enormously. Each new set of burned trees is different. Some areas burned hot and little remains, others have stands of trees spared a fiery death.

Nobles Emigrant Trail

The trail ebbs and flows while Matt and I pass the miles admiring wildflowers. We've passed several varieties of yellow flowers. Then sections of only purple flowers. It's interesting to see the colors segregated like that.

Western Aster

Western Wallflower

Entire fields of Mule Ears

My favorite: Snow Flower, which isn't really a flower at all.

Since there are over a dozen lakes on our route today, I try to talk Matt into sampling each of them. Just as I'm sure I've got him convinced, we come upon our first lake: Soap Lake. The shores are muddy and the name doesn't make the water sound appetizing so we abandon that idea.

Soap Lake

As we'd later find out during a drink at Lower Twin Lake, the Life Straw is probably best left to emergency situations rather than as a primary water source.

Alongside the PCT about midway through our run, we stumble upon a cabin. There are two outbuildings in addition to the main building whose sign says "Park Ranger". Nobody is home, so we take a peek into the outhouse, excited to have a civilized pit stop. Matt agrees to let me go first on the condition that I report back on the toilet paper to critter ratio. I open the door and see it is being used to store lumber. "It's stocked, but the TP is a little raw....."

Climbing up and over a ridge between Rainbow and Snag Lakes, Matt and I reminisce about our backpacking trip on this section a few years ago. This two mile section of trail is all that overlaps that adventure with this one. "It's about here where we made the decision to pack all the way out and go get some DQ instead of another night," I recalled. "Can we do that again?" The climb is equally brutal today, but there will be no Dairy Queen. Sads.

Lower Twin Lake

We pass two hikers stopped on the side of the trail for lunch. One has a can of Easy Cheese, which I admit to him sounds amazing. He tells us about the bear encounter he had that morning at his campsite near the lake but assures us that it was not where we were headed.

Just as that conversation leaves my mind and we reach another trail junction, I spot two hikers pointing at a clearing littered with toppled trees. Then a moving object catches my eye. It's a cinnamon-hued black bear running parallel to the trail about forty feet from us, but bounding off in our direction. I call out a loud, "Hey Bear!" and he stops to look at me. I snap a couple of photos as his snout points to the sky. He soon loses interest and now that he's far enough away from the scary humans, he returns to rooting around in the dirt.

The next few miles of trail skirt the western shore of Snag Lake. It's another of those gentle downhill trails that seems effortless. Drunk on endorphins, sunshine, and perfect views, we profess our undying love for this trail, our favorite of the entire day.

Once our trail moves away from the lake, it travels between a sandy hillside and lava bed and its unique beauty once again makes us giddy even though we're once again struggling through the ankle-deep sand. We practice our power hiking skills for several miles while the landscape changes from forest to dunes of sand.

I bound down each dune at a 7:20 pace with ease, but climbing the other side reduces me to a 22:00 pace at max effort. The variation in pace helps break up the slog through some of the best views of the day.

Cinder Cone and view to the south.

Since our first and last mile are on the same trail, we look forward to the downhill finish. When we're confident it's all downhill from here, Matt takes off ahead of me while I practice my downhill running form as I follow behind. We pass groups of day hikers headed for the Cinder Cone, the main attraction in this part of the park. Bounding down with near reckless abandon, I feel invincible and for a moment I think I can fly.

Back at the car, we make a beeline for our lunches. A man getting out of the car next to ours asks, "Did you climb Cinder Cone?". We say that we skirted the base but didn't go to the top. A look of disappointment spreads across his face. "Maybe tomorrow then?" he asks.

It's been awhile since my toes were this dirty!

No, thanks. I think we've had plenty of adventure for awhile. Little did I know what Matt was going to talk me into doing tomorrow!

20 miles, 4:31, 1,675 ft gain. Elevation: 6,000-7,000 ft.

We went counter-clockwise on the loop.