Lassen Adventure - Pt.2

The next morning of our Lassen adventure, we got up bright and early-ish, had breakfast at the restaurant by the motel, and pumped ourselves up for the big climb. Connor kept saying, "I can't believe I'm going to climb a volcano!" And I said to myself, "Who's idea was this?" since I'd climbed this once and I remembered it being hard.

We climbed and climbed and climbed. We stopped many times to catch our breath. A family was hiking right behind us and their three little boys had boundless energy. Connor's theory was that because they were shorter, the altitude wasn't affecting them as much. Har har.

Eventually we made it to the top, but not before we explored the crater just below the peak. That was a mistake. We were so tired after struggling up and down crevices that we almost didn't get to the peak. But when we finally summited, it was glorious.

We ate our lunch. Everyone up on the peak that day celebrated with everyone else over how we all made it.

Look! It's Shasta in the distance. It's about 70 miles from Lassen.

Then came the climb down. I had borrowed hiking sticks from my parents. It was a good move. The trail is pretty rocky in places and it's easy to loose your footing. As we got lower and lower, the air becomes positively soupy. There was so much oxygen it was exciting.

And so on September 27, 2015, we earned our Lassen patch. We climbed the mountain and lived to tell the tale. 

Then we stopped by Dutch Bros to get some liquid energy (Dutch Freeze) before driving all the way back home.

Taking Summit Road To The Summit

I've got another week of camp to go, but I drove home to do laundry, which has given me time to write a little something. The day before camp started, a group of us decided to bike over the Santa Cruz mountains. It's a 30 mile route and there is one hill that was so steep that we slid while walking our bikes up it.

And the bikes took quite a beating. The locking mechanism on Travis' bike's high gear shifter gave up part of the way through. Lucky for him it was stuck on 1st and not 3rd.

Two miles from the end, Matt's chain broke. We didn't have the right tool to fix it. So he and Chris walked the rest while Travis and I finished the ride. (Travis had to be at camp to get CPR certified, so we had to finish quickly)

We took the route that Chris and Matt had taken the previous time they biked. Apparently they got a bit lost the previous time. I loved how they were able to figure out where we were this time. Sentences such as, "I remember this part, this is where we had a fight" and "This is the spot where I lied to you" were uttered.

I am proud to say that I was in the best shape of everyone, so I wasn't all that sore at the end despite having done the same ride the week before. (It was a little harder this time though.)

I'm hoping it won't be too long before I get to do the ride again. It really was a lot of fun.