Western Travels

Three weeks on the west coast provided pleasant visits with family in southern and northern California as well as return visits to Crater Lake National Park, Mt. Shasta, and Lassen Volcanic National Park, where we refreshed and augmented 53-year-old memories of those dramatic geologic monuments. While sipping a beer in rocking chairs on the Crater Lake Lodge patio as we gazed over the deep crater's azure waters we struck up a conversation with a couple who know a very good friend who grew up near here but long ago moved west and retired to the same town near Yosemite National Park.
The northwest's Cascade Range volcanic features arose from continuing plate tectonics deep under the area. Deep Crater Lake is the remnant of an eruption far greater than the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, and a cataclysmic event that spread ash as far as Ohio and Canada as well as obliterating area human inhabitants some 7,700 years ago.
Mt. Shasta, which last erupted in 1786, rises abruptly to over 14,000 feet and sports growing glaciers.
Lassen, which last erupted in 1914 in a way similar to Mount St. Helens, sports explorable (flashlight required) lava tubes and stinking sulfur springs and mud pots. Its 10,500 peak is popular among climbers and geologists, who now monitor its fitful sleep.