Onwards to Oregon

On Monday, we left our site at Butte Lake Campground in Lassen Volcanic National Park to continue northwards into Oregon.

A short distance from where the gravel road from the campground came out on SR-44, we turned off to visit the Hat Creek Rim Overlook. 

From there, we could see Lassen Peak to the southeast,

... and somewhere up there (hidden by clouds) is Mt Shasta to the north.

There were some interesting sign boards...

Zoomed in:

Following the discovery of gold in 1848, tens of thousands of emigrants were to come to California by various trails in subsequent years. William H. Nobles opened a trail into the northern Sacramento Valley in 1852. The Nobles Trail passed through Lassen Volcanic National Park just to the north of Lassen Peak. An alternate of this route dropped into Hat Creek immediately north of present Highway 44, and was used as a freighting, stage and military road. Lt. E.G. Beckwith, in one of the Pacific Railroad Survey reports, describes this alternate route: "July 10... I therefore divided my party, and directing Mr. Egloffstein to pursue a general western course, by the most favorable route he could discover, to the most western ridge of the mountains. He came upon a precipitous rock descent (Hat Creek Rim), and nowhere presenting a practicable point for the descent of a wagon-road even and much less of a railroad, and it was only after the most persevering efforts, and repeated failures, that he succeeded in effecting the descent with his party -- descending 967 feet at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, into the large rocky valley of Canoe (Hat) Creek."

Zooming in:

Thelma Honn Morri in Living on Lassen describes Hat Creek the night of May 19, 1915:

"There was a terrifying noise up creek, but what brought us fully awake was the sight of Elmer Sorohan, running toward the house, yelling, 'Get out, get out, there's a flood coming.' And before we could even ask what had happened, we saw. Coming down creek was a wall of mud and dirt, like an ocean wave, white foam on its top, roaring like a windstorm on the ridge. Lava and rocks ran before it. Trees fell in its path and were pushed ahead with the lava. The mountain -- my mountain -- was at our door."

"The mudslide, armed now with uprooted trees, crashed into the chicken yard and swept coops, roosts and all into the kitchen of the house. Mrs. Hall bit her knuckles to see her house lurch sidewise. The flood pushed it up the hillside and filled its foundations with debris. Mud and lava kept comign. We sat helpless on the ledge in the darkness. Daylight came and we saw a valley of desolation below us.

"Amazingly, the flood receded. The newsmen had pictures, and they showed the mountain to be a changed spectacle. The two last eruptions had altered the whole contour of the summit. All its forests were gone, and down the northeast side ran a track of black mud."

Original telegram

Gracie and the Jee-rage in the parking area of the Hat Creek Rim Overlook

We couldn't see Mt Shasta from the overlook, but we were hopeful that clouds might clear and there might be views on our drive north...

... and there were! It might be hard to distinguish from the clouds, but Mt Shasta is up there right ahead of us...

Another view with the top peeking out from the clouds.

We stopped at a rest area in Northern California to change drivers and were driving alongside Klamath River for a short distance before getting back on I-5.

We finally got into Oregon! (The people in the picture were just random people who were at the sign when we drove by!) If you are a careful observer, you may have noticed the "States Visited" picture on the right side of the blog now has an additional state!

We stopped for fuel after getting into Oregon (thus avoiding paying California diesel prices this time through) and also stopped at a Costco to stock up on a few items. We arrived at Henderson's Line-Up just before they closed on Monday evening and got directions on where to park and hook up for the night (electricity). We had a Road Performance Assessment scheduled for Tuesday morning and were all ready for it and to get some maintenance done on Gracie to improve her already good ride!