We woke up to some other guy at the campsite sort of laughing at us, saying, "Wow! You guys must have been cold last night!!! Why didn't you all put your rain fly up on your tent??" And while Brad and I had this conversation between ourselves the night before about putting up the rain fly because we would be a little warmer, we didn't because we wanted to look at the trees while we slept. He was not impressed by our explanation, and in reality, I actually slept in my winter coat, but I still stand by our out-doorsy decision that allowed us to commune with nature in our own special way. (Hick -B).
After packing up our camp, we headed towards Lassen Volcanic Park, towards our one true aim of climbing said Lassen Volcano. My parents had already told me the story (a couple times) about how my brother at a young age had sat down on this very volcano and refused to climb any further up the mountain, so clearly, I was determined to show up my 8-year-old brother of the 1970s. Not to mention that as we made it to the trailhead, a number of children, some toddlers (toddlers!!!!!) and some more middle-school aged, were on their way down.
But to be fair, the Lassen climb was to be 2,000 feet over two and a half miles. If you're anything like me, you can't really translate that into anything meaningful. But it's a climb of 200 stories, if that helps at all. Though as we started to climb, we made it a bit over halfway until the last .9 miles were washed out by a rock slide so we couldn't make it any further up. So Mandy and Brad vs. the Volcano was fought to a draw...Though I'd like to state for the record, that had the trail not been washed out, I could have made the extra .9 miles to the top.
-M
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