Tahoe and Lassen: the last campsite and snow in June

After San Francisco we drove through Sacramento and headed to Lake Tahoe — the main big lake in those parts — to spend a couple of days camping there. It turned into a week: from one campground to another, then to Lassen Volcanic and on north, toward Oregon.

Three campgrounds in three days

We spent the first night at a campground by Fallen Leaf Lake. There was no internet, and we entertained ourselves as best we could.

The next morning we finally decided to cook some proper food to last a while — rice with chicken. It did not come out all that proper: the rice turned to mush and got burned. It was edible, but the pot was going to need a good scrubbing.

That same day we moved to Tahoe itself, to a campground right on the shore. The water in the lake is crystal clear but cold: it seemed we would only be able to swim in a couple of days. Geese were walking along the shore, and the squirrels here were smaller than in the places we had been before.

This campground was on the grounds of a hotel. It was better equipped than the first one — with outlets, weak ones though, and hot water in the restrooms — and it cost less: for the first one we paid 35 dollars in 2017. But high season started there the next day and the price went up, so we moved again — to a third campground.

The last free site

The internet at the campgrounds was very weak, and we drove to McDonald's for it. When we got back to camp, a guy and a girl were walking around the campground looking for a place to stay — and it turned out we had taken the last free site. We offered to let them stay with us and split the cost. That way we saved money and had a nice time by the campfire, too. They were from Canada and had come for some kind of race.

The road to the volcano

Next we drove toward Lassen Volcanic National Park and wanted to find a free campground along the way. We found one — at Snake Lake. Funny frogs lived there: when they jumped into the water, they made sounds like meowing. And a deer came by to visit us, too.

We got to Lassen the next day, and the first thing to greet us was snow. We stopped at the visitor center: it has outlets, Wi-Fi, restrooms, drinking water and small shops. The park sits high up: the main visitor center stands at an elevation of about 2050 m, and about 11 m of snow falls there over the winter. We settled in at a campground nearby.

Then we went to see the geothermal springs. Steam pours out of the ground there, and the smell is just what you would expect — hydrogen sulfide.

The jay that flew in to our breakfast is in the post with photos from America. It was not the only guest: seeing that food was being served at our place, a little striped animal came over to the table too.

Trails under snow

Unfortunately, all the interesting trails in the park were still closed at that time — they promised to open them at the end of the month. The only place we could get to was the Ridge Lakes. But they turned out to be frozen too, and mostly what we saw was snow.

Pavel started building a snowman but then gave up on the idea.

But we found something else to do — sliding down the slope on your belly like a penguin.

Rain after a car wash

From Lassen we drove to Redding: we washed the car and stopped at a shop to change the oil. In all our time in the States we had not had a single rain or a single cloud. But as soon as we washed the car, it started raining: the most reliable way to make it rain.

We spent the night at a rest area by the highway, and on the way north we saw Mount Shasta — it is about 4300 m high. In the morning we crossed the California border and found ourselves in Oregon, from where we planned to go to Crater Lake.