Two weeks ago we headed out to the east side for a casual, relaxing fall colors weekend. Of course, at the last minute, Sooz and I decided to climb Mt Morgan, a really fun and easy nearly-14k peak. It wasn’t necessarily so easy for us since we weren’t prepared or acclimated, but the terrain and route finding was straightforward enough that the acclimation was really our only enemy. I explain the route in the captions in my images in my Smugmug album, so if you’re interested head over there for a peek. Here are a few shots of the climb – definitely a worthwhile summit!
Last weekend we visited  Thousand Lakes Wilderness, nestled in the volcanic terrain between Lassen National Park and Burney Falls. While we’re familiar with much of the local area the wilderness itself was new to us and we looked forward to an easy backpack and some fishing.
After a long five hour drive from San Jose and some meetup confusion with a friend, we finally were on our way from the Cypress Trailhead to Everett Lake. The beginning of the hike was a slog along a dusty, steadily climbing trail with no views. I wasn’t terribly impressed. But as we got closer to the small basin containing the lake the views started to open up and I started enjoying the hike.
There are no permits or quotas required for Thousand Lakes wilderness so the lakes were pretty busy. But, as always, five minutes of extra effort found us a nice campsite away from the crowds. It amazes me how lazy backpackers can be, dropping their pack at the first available campsite. Some of my favorite spots have been at incredibly busy areas. Something about finding that secret, out of the way camp site that no one else has discovered is rewarding.
After setting up camp the guys decided to crack open the beer and fish. I, however, had loftier goals. The eroded former Thousand Lakes volcano is now a narrow rim that circles a portion of the Lakes valley. The high points on the rim are all named peaks. Which means I had to stand on top of them. So at 3pm I set off towards the rim with the goal to hit as many as possible before my 5pm turn around time.
View of Red Cliff
There is a trail that leads from the lakes up to a low point on the rim. As I hiked up this trail I was a bit dismayed to see a large amount of snow and even cornices clinging to the rim. But I kept going since I wanted to get a better view of the incredibly colorful and dramatic volcanic rock. As I got closer to the rim, just at the edge of the snow, I could see that the trail switchbacked up a melted-out rib. Yay!
By 4pm I was on the rim and heading to Magee Peak, an undramatic bump on the ridge. The views towards Lassen were incredible. After a short break at the summit for photos and log book signing I headed over to the high point, Crater Peak. It looked like a bushwhack from hell but the snakey use trails through the bushes made the climb quite easy. A couple of short talus fields caught me by surprise – a teeny bit of (avoidable) class 2 to make the climb a bit more fun.
Me on Crater Peak (Lassen in Background)
After a short summit visit I hit my 5 pm turnaround time so there would be no going along the other edge of the rim to hit the other named peaks. At least I have a reason to come back…
A cross-country shortcut back to the trail saved me a lot of time and I was back in camp at 5:50. David had some minor success fishing and all the guys were trying to catch more. I cleaned up and wolfed down all the food I carried in – too hungry from my extra ~6 miles and 2000 ft of gain to wait for the fishies!
Morning view of Everett Lake and Crater Peak from Camp
I’m glad we finally visited this little tucked-away wilderness. The scenery was a nice change and reminded me of Lassen, a place I haven’t backpacked in years. With no permits required and no quotas it’s a great last-minute place to slip away to. Don’t miss the peaks – a large part of my enjoyment of the area was drinking in the views from that volcanic rim – it’s incredible up there!
I was holding out hope that the epic overnight trip covering a lot of miles and some cross-country travel I had planned for this weekend would work out, but this year’s late snow cover would make it more epic than I wanted. So, at the last minute I trolled my Yosemite friends for conditions and switched plans to an easy overnighter from a low-traffic trailhead south of May Lake to a high-traffic camp area above Snow Creek.
We started out around 8500 ft where there was still some patchy snow cover, almost 100% coverage on north facing aspects. We actually parked at a stupid spot – a paved loop about .25 miles away from the actual trailhead, but when we couldn’t find the trail rather than look at the map we just assumed it was under snow and cross-countried until we ran into the actual trail. Looking at the map later on we realized our mistake. Oops.
