Photo Friday: Mt. Lassen National Park

Before I let you look a the pretty pictures, I have a request. It's come to my attention that my main characters are women who are pretty good at hiding their feelings. In fact, they seem to have some issues with admitting they have them at all. When I started thinking about writing a character who is more open, I realized how pervasive this attitude is in our American culture (and British too, I think). So here's what I'm looking for: books with main characters who are unafraid to have and express their feelings. Whatever the heck that looks like.

Okay, leave your suggestions in the comments, and enjoy the photos. Oh, and to see what I mean about my books, head over to the Smashwords sale and nab my books before the prices go up more!

Last weekend the "Land of Way Too Hot" (as I called Chico last week) was too much, and I headed up to Lassen with one of my sons for an overnight backpack trip. The scenic highlight was the comet, though we weren't able to get any photos of that. I have a few pictures from the hike, which was a good chance to refresh my son's skills (it's been several years since he backpacked with us), and to see how it felt. I missed my husband fiercely, but proved to myself that the wilderness is still where I need to be.

I'll start the photos this time with an abstract. The Impressionists would be proud of the lake's artistry.

Our trip was a rather modest hike in Lassen National Park, from the Juniper Lake trailhead to Snag Lake and back. Since we got a rather late start, the 3 1/2 to 4 mile hike in was about perfect.

 A brief hunt along the shore found us a site well away from other hikers--of which there were quite a few on this beautiful weekend.

The main feature of Snag Lake (besides water that wasn't half bad for a swim) is a view of the Cinder Cone. We'd thought to climb it, but didn't want to hike that far, especially as we ended up finding a camp on the opposite side of the lake! Below are a few views of the cone and the Fantastic Lava Beds (yes, that's the real official name).

It was breezy in the afternoon and evening--good for keeping bugs away--but very calm in the morning, good for reflections, even as the breeze picked up again.

On the way out we took a detour and visited Horseshoe Lake, which offered a hint of a peek at the peak. Mt. Lassen was just visible over the ridge there, unlike at Snag Lake.

As we climbed the ridge between Horseshoe Lake and Juniper, we got further glimpses of the volcano, but never a clear view.

When we drove down from Seattle a couple of weeks ago we got views of all the Cascade volcanoes from Rainier south (well, we weren't sure we saw St. Helens. It has gotten rather short and hard to sort out from the other hills). Lassen is the last of the Cascade range, and being both well south and not very tall, it had the least snow, on this southeast face anyway.

We enjoyed our 24-hour trip, and I hope you enjoyed the photos!

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All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2020, unless otherwise indicated.
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Photo Friday!

Well, that was a week! My post is late today, because not only was there no flash fiction prompt from Chuck Wendig, but Friday snuck up on me. So instead of a story, we have photos. Last weekend, we visited Mt. Lassen National Park--by bicycle. So not a very thorough visit in some ways, but what I rode through I saw inch by inch! Not a hint of snow in the park, of course, which makes Mt. Lassen look a whole lot less impressive.

A few stats: Mt. Lassen (10,463') is located in northern California, and is the southernmost volcano of the Cascade range (the same one that has Mt. Rainier and the explosive Mt. St. Helens). The park is currently celebrating the centennial of the mountain's last eruptive cycle, which probably tells you most of what you need to know about volcanic activity! Definitely not a dead volcano. The park has areas of impressive thermal activity (not in Yellowstone quantities, but still good). Most of that requires a walk to get to it, so we didn't visit--too hard to walk in our bike shoes. Ironically, touring by bike turned us into the worst sort of "windshield tourist" who never leaves the pavement.

Our ride started outside the Park, so the entrance sign was a good excuse to stop.

I love the wisp of steam from the mountain in the picture on the sign.

 We went on to the Visitor's Center and had lunch, then began the real climb up towards the mountain.

The road got a serious case of the wiggles. This was actually good--it really was never terribly steep. It just kept going.

As we got closer to the mountain, we reached the one road-side thermal feature, the Sulfur Works (I think there is more there than what is visible from the road, but that's what we checked out).

Yes, that is boiling mud.

I shot this on the way back down when the light was better. Sunlight through the steam over the bubbling mud pot.

Mid-afternoon, and I finally reached the high point on the road (despite the sign, it is only the "summit" of the pass, not of the peak! You have to hike to get up there--a trip I have never done, and would definitely not care to do at this time of year--too hot and dry).

Sadly, this wasn't the turn-around. I had to go down the other side a few miles--and climb back up!

I dropped down to Kings Meadow, which was painfully dry (as was everything in the park--there were slopes of plants that were completely brown, plants that should have had green leaves all summer). The meadow has a lovely stream, though, and a view straight back to the peak itself.

Kings Creek and random tourists

What would an epic ride be without a treat? I made it back to the Visitor's Center cafe just in time to get our ice cream before they closed.

Usually I'd snoot this sort of ice cream. After 40+ miles, with 10 or more to go, it was delicious :)

Lassen is a cool park practically in our back yard. One of these days we need to go spend more time there and explore all the thermal features!

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

Photos shot on my new IPhone 5, which doesn't do too badly for a phone.

L: Mt. Lassen

True confessions: I wrote this review last year, and used it for my "F" post in the 2014 A to Z Challenge. So sue me! She's still a great writer and the series is worth checking out. As is Mt. Lassen--see photos at end of post!

Title:  Firestorm
Author: Nevada Barr
Publisher: Orig. published Putnam Adult, 307 pages, 1996.
Source:  Public library (ebook)

Summary:
Ranger Anna Pigeon is on loan from Mesa Verde to fight wildfire near Mt. Lassen in California.  But as the fire camp is closing down, a carry-out operation for an injured firefighter is brought to a shocking end.  The fire suddenly blows up and the group is forced to deploy their last-ditch fire shelters.  When the flames pass, one shelter contains a dead man--with the knife still in his ribs.  Before they can be evacuated, snow closes the approaches to the camp.  It's up to Anna, with some long-distance help from her sort of love interest, Frederick Stanton of the FBI, to find out who killed the man, and why.

Review:
The Anna Pigeon novels are one part police procedural (Anna is in law enforcement, for the Park Service), one part exercise for the little grey cells, and one part wild adventure.  In Firestorm, Anna struggles to keep the grey cells working without food or sleep as she is faced with a classic locked-door mystery.  She's locked in the room with the suspects and the corpse, and survival involves food and fire as well as not tipping off the unknown killer.

Barr builds the tension well, and refuses to give us the obvious criminals just as she refuses to give us (or Anna and Frederick) an easy love story.  Anna peels away layer after layer of the dead man's life, until most readers would be happy to join in sticking the knife in the man's ribs.  But only one person has done it, and though in retrospect there are clues, the answer still comes as a shock--just the way it should.  And while we are sure Anna will be glad to see Stanton, we can be pretty sure that they won't ride off into the sunset together.  She has a lot of baggage, and ends this book with still more.

Barr's mysteries are a bit too gritty to be cozy, but they share some important features with cozies.  Notably, the characters are easy to identify with, and the settings are vital.  In fact, this was the first Anna Pigeon novel I read (when it first came out), because it was set in my husband's local park.  The threats to the Parks that Pigeon uncovers lend a special importance to the investigations she undertakes for us.

Recommendation:
If you like the National Parks and you like mysteries, and aren't afraid of a bit of gore and some mildly foul language, Nevada Barr and Anna Pigeon are for you.  And this book, though not the first in the series, is as good a place as any to start, and better than some.

Full Disclosure: I borrowed  Firestorm  from my public (digital) library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

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Mt. Lassen is the southern-most of the Cascade volcanoes (it is not part of the Sierra Nevada, which is primarily created by uplift, but part of the Cascades, which are volcanic). It is 10,457', and last erupted from 1914-17, making it the second most-recently-active of the Cascade volcanoes (after St. Helens, which erupted in 1980).
 
And now for the photos. These are from a  3-day backpack we did at Butte and Snag lakes on the east side of the Park in 2011.

Lassen in August in a year with decent snow. This year, I'm pretty sure the mountain has less snow than this right now, in April.

Lassen peering from behind the Cinder Cone responsible for the lava field that separates Butte and Snag lakes.

Yes, this is the background for this blog page! Shot from the top of the Cinder Cone looking down to Snag Lake.

There have been fires in that area, not just in Nevada Barr's fiction but in reality. Afterwards, you get amazing wildflowers.

 

Last light on the volcano.