We set out to our almost traditional horse ride.

This time, Fremont Lake was our destination.

During past years I somehow could not get in my head why the kids' school starts in the last week of August, when on the first week in September, Labor Day comes and the children enjoy another mini-vacation right two weeks into the new school year. This year I have found it an ingenious idea instead. Lisa kept coming back from school really tired, and two four-day weeks (it's Friday off, followed by Monday off) really did benefit her.

Hippo and I had arranged a horse-back ride at Leavitt Meadows for Tuesday and Wednesday preceding the Labor Day weekend. We wanted to take advantage of granny's presence, and get out just the two of us. Our guide on this year's horse ride was Mike, who had promised to teach us how to fish. I left nothing to chance, much less our fishing luck, and packed a preserved salmon. Fish is fish, is it not? I also packed along our new sleeping bags, to subject them to an endurance test. After a frosty experience at Poore Lake I had purchased a (discounted) dawn mummy that weighs 900 grams and is labeled for +15°F (which is about -9°C). Not that I believe much in marketing statements; I'd be happy if it would keep me warm when it's about freezing outside. Hippo was eying it longingly, but his manly figure prevents him to ever fit inside these standard mummy bags. When donned, it reaches up to his armpits, and acts like a straight-jacket. But to stop him from being able to claim I don't take care of him, I got him a heavy blanket bag designed for 196 cm (Hippo has 192), which features a constrictable top, and thus can be partially turned into a cocoon.

To my surprise, Hippo and Mike actually caught dinner.

If I were on my own there, I'd be eating vegetarian.

At the last moment we borrowed Bryce's fishing pole, and set out on Monday right after Hippo's workday ended. We spent the night above Strawberry, but we never got to really testing the sleeping bags — the night was so warm that we never even zipped them up inside our wagon. I exchanged a few text messages with granny in the morning, then we crossed the Sonora Pass and descended to Leavitt, awaited by cowboys and horses. It was a small wonder Hippo was not issued his usual Farnsworth, but the pretty Atticus. We were told that Farnsworth is getting old and long trips aren't for him anymore. I was issued Jenna. She did not like me much last time, and so I was curious how we'd be getting along. Fortunately Jenny likes apples and she let me bribe her with a few fallen ones from our front yard.

I must be getting older, for this time my knees hurt me during the ride more than before. It's a little over eight miles to Fremont Lake, mostly uphill, and it took the horses over three hours (with a break to stretch my aching knees). We found supplies for basic camping under a tarp by Fremont Lake — treasures like folding chairs, a table, and a grill. Jeff the cowboy took away our horses and mules back to the pack station, and Mike started to explain to Hippo, how to deal with the fishing pole. We got poles, lures, hooks and sinkers, and headed for the lake.

To my astonishment Hippo caught a fish (a brook trout — Salvelinus fontinalis) within first five minutes. We found ourselves somewhat unprepared, for we did not bother to ask Mike what to do should we catch anything. Eventually the trout was safely killed in the grass, skewered on a twig by its gills, while we continued in our tries to catch more dinner.

Returning from Fremont Lake.

A fumerole encroaching the roadway.

I don't know if being a woman is a factor, or I simply don't understand it, but fishing did not catch on with me. I'd rather sat by the fire and watch the flames, drinking tea. I admit that Fremont Lake is beautiful and watching the water surface can be entertaining, too. Still I gave up in the end and went on to make camp. Hippo rolled in about five minutes later, having caught another trout, saying that it could be enough with the rice I brought along. Mike showed up with three more fishes, and at last it became a feast. It turned out that the second of Sid's trouts was a rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), which has pink meat almost like a salmon and is very tasty.

And this night, either, did not supply enough chill to test our sleeping bags; still we rested well. Hippo kept sleeping in the morning and I sat on a rock with a view to the lake, sipping coffee, watching early-riser Mike zip around the surface in his inflatable suit/float. When Hippo was ready to roll out of bed, we packed everything and went to try our luck with a flashing tackle. Fortunately for everybody, we caught nothing (we would have to release the fish anyway), only a bunch of seaweed and grass from the lake. Mike said that the fish were hard to catch this morning, for he got "only four". Sage the cowboy met us at the lakeshore, bringing our horses and mules just when my line became an undisentangleable mess and I decided that I was done with fishing for good, as I had no talent for it.

Lassen Peak and Lake Helen.

Not even our duck would dare farther than half-thigh deep.

Riding downhill hurt my knees again, and I had to deal with Jenna. First she pushed ahead of Atticus, but when she got there she was nervous (Atticus is said to be Craig's horse — and I have the feeling that the horses are very much aware who's the top boss, and boss's horse enjoys a special place among the rest), bothering the mules, which they protested by kicking up their hind legs, and I had to take her back in the line. She did not dare bothering Atticus, and he's been apparently a reasonable and well-mannered horse.

We rattled down relatively quickly, but I still had to give my knees one break. We stopped for dinner at Strawberry Inn, reaching our house after the kids had gone to bed. Granny reported that there was drama with the hamster — Pattie ran from Tom, found another hole into the depths under our kitchen, and refused to get out, which upset our poor Tom — he thought poor Pattie would die there and it was all his fault. Fortunately in time Pattie had finished with her adventure, got out and let them catch her.

On Thursday I was washing laundry and re-packing stuff from the wagon to the bus. I thought I would fit in gym climbing in the evening, but I had discovered that my usual buddies were either packing for the extended weekend, or already leaving, or have already left. In the end I was glad of it — I had time to prepare everything for our own Friday departure with the whole family to Lassen.

The snow banks were amazingly warm.

A hike to Cinder Cone.

Driving to our most favorite park would have passed without a problem, had Hippo not discovered that he lost his credit card, most likely at a restaurant. There wasn't much we could do in the midst of our trip, and we were hoping we could pick it up on our way back. The road to Lassen leads through Central Valley, and we were happy to pass through the park gate and stretch our legs a bit. I was surprised how much the fumerole next to the roadway grew in a year. There used to be tourist paths leading to a small walk; the area has been fenced off after a hot, bubbling mud-hole the size of a soccer ball opened there. This years hole is at least four feet in diameter and touches the curb.

Lake Helen was our next stop. Deep snow banks still stood on its shores, but some daring (and much screaming) individuals were jumping in the water. Lisa demanded to don her swimsuit and splash in the lake, but could not go farther than waist-deep. I admired a pubescent woman who swam free-style in the icy waves — she soon explained that she was from Canada and therefore used to chilly waters. And we from California are not — but it's warm in the mountain sun, and thus our kids did not quite submerged in the lake, but played in their swimsuits on the snow.

Our resident German must have accompanied us on our trip, at least from Lake Helen. Hippo and I clearly remembered our campsite from two years ago, but we'd forgotten how to get there, exactly. And when it became absolutely OBVIOUS that we must have passed it, Hippo decided to turn the bus around on one of many turn-offs. And since he left the highway then, he check out a bit of the turn-off. The clear-cut forest did not seem very friendly, but Hippo kept going on and on — and then suddenly we found ourselves near our campsite. Which proves that either a) our memories are absolute crap, or b) space aliens have moved the campsite about two miles east in two years.

Lassen Peak and ash dunes.

Flowers blossom even it this wasteland.

We did not ponder it much then; we needed to erect our tent, warm up our soup for dinner and stuff our kids in their respective sleeping bags. We had originally pictured with Hippo that we would then open a cider and sit around outside, but the cold had chased us in. That night apparently became a qualified testing event for our sleeping bags — the chill just pinched my face toward the morning, and I crawled completely inside my bag — I conclude that it must have been around freezing then. We had no thermometer, though, and thus it's just an estimate.

We warmed in the morning sun; temperatures change here really fast — soon we were lined up, wearing shorts, on a parking lot under Cinder Cone. The hike that consists of about three miles and some thousand feet elevation, does not look very dramatic on paper. However, since you wade ankle deep in volcanic ashes, sand, and rocks for most of the way, it turns out to be quite an exercise.

Juniors kept jumping and fooling around at the beginning, Lisa climbed a fallen tree. She stroke poses for picture at top, and subsequently discovered she was afraid to climb back down. We check out the situation with Hippo, concluded she was in no danger and since she managed to get there, she had to find a way to return. Which she, of course, did, albeit with much crying and foot-stomping. She stayed defiant and hurt all she way under the very Cinder Cone. Climbing up she soon discovered that her weight (the other day, fully dressed she almost reached thirty pounds) lets her perform in this difficult terrain with the ease of an elf. While the rest of us were all sinking into the ashes and two steps uphill meant sliding down and losing at least one step to the sand and rocks, Lisa was practically hovering over the surface. She ran up Cinder Cone, making Tom very upset — hitherto he was used to be the elder, stronger and faster one — and now his baby sister beat him.

Remnants of Cinder Cone crater.

We had a snack on top and decided to descend over another route, which offers a better view to painted dunes. Kids demanded to be released to play in the dunes, but it's actually forbidden, and not being of sand, but of pumice ashes, they don't really offer the same fun as those sand dunes in Death Valley. It was also crazy hot there — from the sun and from the baking, dark pumice.

We're descending the steeper side of Cinder Cone.

Garter Snake.

The more we were looking forward to Butte Lake. We stopped at our bus, put our swimsuits on, grabbed a snack, and joined picnicing crowds at the lakeside. Before Hippo and I managed to find a spot to spread out and start eating, our kids befriended a boy of Tom's age — and disappeared from our sight. Tom did not even manage to eat, for he had to chase little fish and splash in the lake. The boy was accompanied by his father, grandfather and grandmother, and some more cousins were to join them shortly. We took turns with all these adults in checking out the kids; the grandfather managed to trap a small snake and show it to the ecstatic children. The snake was scared and gave off a really foul smell, and eventually slithered indignantly away into the water and disappeared among the reeks.

It was rather difficult to drag our children away from the water and their company, but we accomplished it through promising them pizza at Burney. Only when driving away, Tom had noticed he was famished, but he had to last till Burney — just like we had to suppress our mighty beer-thirst.

We did not have many plans for Sunday. Our original thoughts swirled around driving back through the park and perhaps stopping at Bumpass Hell, but in the end we figured there would be too many people on this middle day of a three-day holiday weekend, and we would try something less trodden. We were camping beyond the north-west park boundary; it made sens to try to circumnavigate the park and re-enter is from east, as we never had been there before. Hippo directed me with GPS over local roads that — as we soon found — sometimes lack pavement in these remote parts. A town named Chester was pleasant surprise, looking like a center of civilization (besides obligatory tourist traps we noticed several restaurants and motels); then we suffered behind four SUVs that dragged before us for the next twenty miles of winding road to the park. When the pavement gave way to dirt again, the SUV crews began panicking, stopping and generally despairing (and also paying entrance fee, which we don't on account of having an annual pass). Thus I drove past and in front of them; it got us the last free parking spot on a tiny parking lot by Drakesbed.

There are many springs and brooks on the eastern side of the park; parts of the trail cross a swamp.

Boiling Springs Lake and Lassen Peak.

Hippo announced he was hungry, and we quickly made an instant miso soup, thus having a lunch by the car, which relieved us from having to carry food. The break gave us good account of how many people pass through even this remote location. Fortunately, there are several destinations available in the vicinity, and the crowds thinned out considerably on our way to Boiling Springs Lake; we actually passed only a couple of people. It was all very well, for this boiling lake is certainly more interesting and mysterious without tourist groups. I was surprised that we all felt somewhat tired — apparently the hike in sand and heat of the day before had taken its toll. Here we walked along a regular trail, mostly in woods, and that was nice. The whole hillside is full of small springs — most of them hot — even the guest ranch in the valley has one spring feeding its swimming pool. A rather strange feeling: you come across a spring in the woods that looks very regular — and its water is just right for a hot bath.

Having finished hiking, we set out toward home — I was rather glad of the ideas to swap Hippo's holiday morning for his Friday — most visitors to Lassen were arriving on Saturday afternoon (when we were already done with one camping night and a Cinder Cone hike); on Sunday they all most likely got inside the park (as evidenced by relatively crowded, unadvertised eastern side) — and I really would not like to see the Monday traffic jams as everybody rushes to get back to their cities. And being in the middle of exploring uncharted territories, we let a sign reading Mineral 25 miles lure us to an opportunity to avoid returning via highway 36 through Chester. Our history of East Carter Road repeated itself — we are speeding along the road and it ends abruptly, changing into a dusty dirt road and immediately dumping us onto a eight-way cross-roads, with at least three paths tentatively leading in the right direction. We had to stop and start our GPS, to find ourselves and locate the wretched Mineral. Hippo kept threatening that we may not get through as the map looks like a ford across a river, but his disaster plan fell flat — there was a bridge! We even reached the Mineral. We might have saved a couple of miles, time-wise things being likely equal. For sure we spared our nerves avoiding teeming tourists — and we had seen something new again.

The only other trouble occurred at the restaurant where we wanted to have dinner and pick up our lost credit card. A sign on the door said that they close every first Sunday of the month. Hippo cursed the card, kids were bothersome on account of being hungry, and I had to listen to it all (they denied having the card on the phone next day, and we had to report it truly lost). Now we were challenged with finding something to eat in a strange town — and in the end we decided to get much closer to home instead and use a known quantity. We had dinner at our favorite Shana in Mountain View — they open on Sundays, the meals are wonderful, and it's not so busy there on the weekend. Thus our trip concluded successfully — and my kids and I had saved the whole Monday to recover from our holiday.