Trip Report
Our first day we went to Lakeview via the North Umpqua Hwy., Crater Lake, Chiloquin and Quartz Mountain summit. Next day we continued south along the east side of Goose Lake and through New Pine Creek, CA., and up to the summit of Fandango Pass. We descended a winding road to Fort Silwell, an historic town, which was originally a fort. The fort buildings were converted into an Indian school and hospital and not much of the original remains. We visited their very neatly kept cemetery and had an informative talk by a native daughter. Then we stopped in the city park at Cedarville for lunch and a stroll down Main Street; then over the Warner Range to Alturas with enough time to take in their excellent museum.
Next day dawned bright, and we went south by way of Canby, Adin to Susanville, then skirted the north shore of Lake Almanor and had lunch in a grove of sugar pines and cedars near Lassen Park border. It was quite a climb up the southern part of ancient Mt. Tehama to the more recent colorful volcanic strata with Mt. Lassen near the center of the old caldera. We passed steam vents, and Lake Helen near the top and then stopped for a photograph at Manzanita Lake before going to Mt. Shasta City via Birney Falls.
Ray Miller, special guide with Mt. Shasta's Sisson Museum, his learner Jim and Elizabeth Crispin (friend of Jane Hilt) met us at 8:30 a.m. at our bus and motel. We started our day with comfortable, warm weather, a few drifting clouds and always a few over the very top of the 14,152-ft. mountain. It was easy listening to Ray tell some history and geology stories of the mystical, sacred mountain with much humor. We then visited the Old City company town of McCloud, once owned and controlled by one man and now partially deserted. We walked a short distance and viewed upper and lower McCloud River Falls. Stayed awhile and walked around Castle Lake with Mt. Eddy in the background, west of Mt. Shasta. We ate sack lunches in the shade of Sisson Museum followed by a comprehensive tour of the fish hatchery. We accepted Elizabeth's invitation and enjoyed a tour of her acreage, garden and creek and pool, trees and plants, while some rested on the 50-ft. deck of her house.
Our last day was sunny and warm. Stopped to see Yreka's nice historical museum; visited the court-house and the wonderful gold exhibit. We then took the old highway through Ashland and stopped at Harry and David's in Medford for a rest stop. Lunch in the shade beside Jacksonville Museum.
Ice cream at Rice Hill and home to Eugene promptly at 5:00 p.m. by Margaret Baldwin, Mary & Richard Bentsen, Catherine Anderson, Ingrid Carmichael, Clair Cooley, Ardis Ebbighausen, Bette Hack, Vera Heidenreich, Evelyn Hile, Betty Holeman, Miki Hutchison, Jean & Ray Jensen, Roselle Jones, Virginia Kapsa, Ruth Keen, Helen Knowlton, Dolores Kelly, Dody Leppmann, Marie Loome, John & Lenore McManigal, Mary Mallery, Frances Newsom, Janice Pattison, Myrtle Sagen, John Thompson, Louise Thurber, Lois Schreiner, and (leaders) Jane Hilt and Ewart Baldwin.
