Lava Beds National Monument (10/8/24)

 I didn’t really think when we decided to check out Lava Beds NM that we were continuing with our volcano exploration, but we were. Lava Beds NM is home to Medicine Lake Volcano, which is actually the largest volcano, by volume ( there is always a caveat) in the cascade range. 

The difference is, its a shield volcano. It doesn’t have a tall cone shaped peak like a composite volcano (think Rainier, etc) it is actually shaped like a shield, and has numerous small cones. The island of Hawaii has shield volcanos.

We stopped at the visitor center first, to get our cave pass. Everyone is required to have a pass that shows they attended the orientation that talks about the bats and their safety.

Nearby is Mushpot Cave, the only cave that it permanently lit- all the others require you to bring your own flashlights (you can also borrow them from the visitor center)

Our plan to hike to the top of Schonchin Butte, a cinder cone, early in the day to beat the heat, was thwarted by 12 year olds. A bus load of kids is camping in the park and they arrived at the trail head at the same time as us. I love the fact that they are outdoors, learning, and the bus driver said they are on a 4 day trip- with no cell phones.

That doesn’t mean I want to hike with them, so we moved on to our next item, Black Crater. This area has a lot of dark lava, which makes it stand out.

From here we got our first good look at Mount Shasta in the distance. 

The monument itself has over 240 known lava tubes, or caves. Not all of them are accessible, and not all of the accessible ones are open all the time. It depends where the bats are- in fact, if you happen upon a bat in a cave, you are required to leave the cave.

Our first cave of the day was Boulevard Cave.  The accessible caves are categorized by their difficulty. From walking upright, to having to crawl in some areas, on to being on all fours for much of the journey. We mostly stuck with the easy ones, although Boulevard is listed as moderate. It was a short walk till we got to the moderate area and turned around.

The second cave, Valentine, is much bigger and looks totally different. It had several columns throughout, requiring us to make constant choices as to which way to go.

After a few turns, my paranoia reared its ugly head and I wanted to turn around. I get sort of claustrophobic when I go too far underground, in the dark. Picturing us getting lost in a massive cave soured me a little on caving, so Paul explored several other caves on his own.

The following day we were able to hike Schonchin Butte Trail. The trail, built by the CCC in the 1930s, leads to a fire tower, also built by the CCC.

The view of the surrounding area from the fire tower was worth the trip up the hill.

In the afternoon we did the short scenic drive which took us past several more caves we could explore.

We did check out a few of them (Paul more than me) and then decided we had seen enough and were ready to move on to our next destination.

In keeping with our Volcano “theme” we headed to Mt Shasta for a couple of days of exploring, staying in the small town of McCloud.

Mt. Shasta is a little more challenging to to explore, with no visitor center that we could find, and not too many hiking trails.

We did do a  couple of short hikes, and a drive up the mountain as far as we could- until we were told we were on private property(ski resort) and needed to leave.

The other hikes we found in the area were good, even if they weren’t on the mountain. The McCloud River Falls trail follows the McCloud river to several waterfalls.

 

We started at the lower falls, hiked past the middle falls, and turned around after we saw the upper falls.

All in all about 4 miles.

Our final hike in the area was a little bit out of town but gets great reviews. It is the Castle Dome trail in Castle Craig State Park.

The trail starts as a meander through the woods, with some steep sections. We were warned that the easy part ends once you leave the woods and start hiking on rock.

 

It definitely took some eye hand coordination in some areas, and some scrambling, but it was fun.

The further up the trail we got, the better the views were, of course. Unfortunately, after 3 miles and 1800 ft of gain, I started to not feel great.

I was lightheaded and nauseous, signs of dehydration/altitude sickness. As much as I hated to give up on the peak, I sent Paul on without me.

Although it was less than a half mile to the peak, it was another 250 feet of gain. We had cell signal, which made him more comfortable  ( I think he texted me 6 times.) leaving me behind.

Moving on from Shasta, our next stop was….you guessed it, another volcano.