Lava Beds National Monument - Sun, 1 Sep 2019, 4:30pm

Lava Beds National Monument has more than a dozen marked caves. When we saw the name Skull Cave we put it high on our list. The name is metal. And lots of skulls have been found in it. Totally metal! The fact that it's a) a large cave and b) an ice cave sealed the deal.


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Lava Beds National Monument - Sun, 1 Sep 2019, 3:30pm

After hiking Whitney Butte today (previous blog) we shrugged off our packs at the car, had a quick picnic lunch, and went straight on to Merrill Cave. It was right there, sharing a parking lot with the Whitney Butte trailhead, so why not. Plus, Merrill Cave is one of the few ice caves in the ( Read more... )

Lava Beds National Monument, CA - Sun, 1 Sep 2019, 3pmThis morning we set off on a hike to Whitney Butte in Lava Beds National Monument. It's the newest trail in the park, one ranger told us. It leads to one of the youngest lava beds in the park. The scales of "youngest" here do not match, though. The lava bed, part of the Callahan Flow, is about 1 ( Read more... )

Tionesta, CA - Sat, 31 Aug 2019, 9pm

After hiking Schonchin Butte we did as the ranger at the lookout advised and drove to Tulelake for dinner. The town of Tulelake, 25 miles away, has the closest eats in this very remote part of California. And as it's a dying town with fewer than 1,000 population it has just three restuarants. The burgers and ( Read more... )

Lava Beds National Monument, - Sat, 31 Aug 2019, 4:30pm

As we drove into Lava Beds earlier today we took note of Schonchin Butte. It's a cinder cone- a type of mountain that is notoriously hard to hike because of its loosely packed, fine grain composition.


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Redding, CA - Fri, 30 Aug 2019, 11:00pm

Tonight's another Friday Night Halfway. Tonight we're halfway to... the middle of nowhere. 😨

Halfway to nowhere has got to be somewhere, though. Tonight's somewhere is Redding, California, a burgeoning town of going on 100,000 people at the north end of California's Central Valley. Perched beneath enormous ( Read more... )

The ongoing Camp Fire in Butte County, California- named because it started along Camp Creek Road, not because it started as a campfire- is now tied with the 1933 Griffith Fire (yes, 85 years ago) as the deadliest wildfire in state history. 29 people have been found dead so far.

I wrote a few days ago about California Burning. The state, especially the northern part of the state, is experiencing a number of large wildfires. Sometimes the news a few days later is good news; things got better. Other times it's not good news; things got worse. This is one of those "got worse" times ( Read more... )

It's becoming a tough summer in California. Numerous deadly wildfires are burning across the state. Among the biggest are the Carr Fire near Redding, now at 145,015 acres and 41% contained; two Mendocino Complex Fires in Lake and Mendocino Counties, collectively at about 229,000 acres and less than 50% contained; and the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite ( Read more... )

Southern Oregon Travelog 8
Monday, 28 May 2018, 9:30pm - Back Home

Whew. It was a 400 mile drive back home from Medford, OR today. Surprisingly we made it in about 8 hours door-to-door including two meal stops plus a few other stops. Thankfully there were only brief slow-downs for holiday weekend return traffic. If we'd hammered through with ( Read more... )