Hiking a Tiny Bit of the Pacific Crest Trail - Lassen, CA

Red Bluff, CA

Elks Lodge 

It was time once again to get out of the heat and head up into the mountains where it was 20 degrees cooler.  I think we'll head north up to Red Bluff and see my sister first along the way.

Me and my sister, Kris.  The three of us walked around town first as there was a farmers market going on.  We bought some fresh veggies and fruit then headed for dinner.

 

We met up at a Mexican restaurant.  I really wanted to try Kalcoca's but it turned out they didn't serve margaritas.  That's a big NOPE.  So we went across the street to Los Mariachi's.  Good choice.

We walked around town a bit and enjoyed the cute downtown.  It was still very hot so we didn't stay long.

The Elks Lodge has water, electric and dump.  $25.  Our pull through site, #15.  Half of the sites are pull throughs and the other half are back-ins.  Like many other lodges, it backs up to a busy road.  In this case, I-5.  It was pretty noisy so I slept with earplugs.

The property is huge with large lawns, outdoor seating areas, horseshoe pits and picnic areas.

The Sacramento River is on the other side of the lodge.

They have a large tennis court too.

We just spent the night then headed up to visit Lassen National Park.  For some reason our trucks GPS took us on a slight shortcut.  Maybe as the crow flies! It wasn't bad though since we had the camper but I wouldn't have wanted to bring the 5er this way.  It's always nice to be on a road we haven't before.  We went 36 to A6 to 44.  It was very steep and switch backed in one area and the truck wasn't too happy about going that slow with the camper.

Interesting lava rocks in this area.

Crater Peak in the distance.  8681' elevation.

Old Station, CA

Mud Lake Trailhead - Boondocking

Our destination was a boondocking spot right along the Pacific Crest Trail referred to as Mud Lake Trailhead.  It was about 15 minutes further from the Lassen National Park entrance, just outside of Old Station.  A very short drive down a nice gravel/dirt road.  

A couple of turns later on satellite I found a perfect spot.  The coords are: 40.70818N 121.40123W.  Perfect pull out for a camper.  I would not take a trailer back here as it would be difficult to turn around.  We had 3 bars of boosted Verizon.  There is a nice spot to access fresh water, dump and garbage for $6 just behind the gas station in Old Station.  Huge, paved area that can fit any size rig.

Since we were on the edge of the forest we had great solar access too.

The tall pines dwarf our camper.

We were only a couple of hundred feet from the Pacific Crest Trail so we hiked it a bit going both directions.

The sun was setting and casting some color on the mountain side.  It was a beautiful evening hike.

I've hiked many small segments of the trail before so it's always fun to add a new section.  I had always hoped to do through-hike the entire length from the Mexican border up through CA, OR and WA finishing at the Canadian border.  Sigh.  No one has wanted to come along though.

The evening was beautiful.  We're here for a couple of nights.  Our elevation at this spot is 4868.

We had a campfire one night as there were no bugs to bother us.

We're the blue dot.

We were in grazing land so we had some cute neighbors.  The little calves were adorable.  Each morning and evening they'd walk right past us.

I said Hello and got a dirty look!

On our last day we hiked the other direction towards a nice observation point.  There was a hiker there, Trail Name of" Spirit", who was resting.  He was section hiking it over the years and this was his last portion.  Congrats to him!

Keep the gate shut so the cows don't get out!

Burn section.

Volcano eruptions and, much more frequently, fires happen here.

It was nice to hike another part of the Pacific Crest Trail.  Next up we enter Lassen National Park.