Day 65 – Mile 1347.4 – 1370.8

Boundary Spring to Hat Creek & Tentsite (5)

Today we were back to usual up at 5:15, away by 6:30. It was quite a cruisey trail today, plenty of pine needles underfoot and very flat.

The first highlight of the day was a side trip to ‘Terminal Geyser’, on the approach I could see plumes of steam billowing into the sky. I thought it might just be a steam vent, but when I arrived I saw an almost constant jet of boiling water a few feet high gushing out of the earth. It then formed a stream of hot water flowing down the hillside.

Next up was ‘Boiling Springs Lake’, a good sized lake pale green in colour with white foam on top, with the occasional bubble/gurgle at the far end (not as impressive)

After that was ‘Warner Valley Campground’ – closed to everyone because of fire damage to the trees meaning potential blow downs on windy days. The climb from here was the most significant of the day and lasted about 2miles, it felt pretty steep.

Our chosen lunch spot was ‘Lower Twin Lake’ where we topped up our water and Beetle went for a swim. We still had about 8 miles to go to get out of Lassen VNP and be able to camp freely without a bear canister.

The terrain in the afternoon was all very similar, areas of burned pine trees with the odd lake from time to time. All very flat and easy trail. We eventually ended up at a tentsite 4 miles outside the park as we thought the first few camp spots would get quite crowded later on.

At camp I felt really tired. I filtered more water and had dinner; cold soaked couscous & tuna and tried to get an early night.

Water filtered: 187.5 litres

PCT Miles hiked today: 23.4

Nights under canvas current streak: 2

Max streak: 18

Total nights under canvas: 54

Showers: 13

Trail Magic: 7

Thought for the day: “Everything is hard before it’s easy” – Goethe J. W.