As usual for this trip, we were up at 5:45 am, had a light breakfast and tea, and were on the road by 7 am. All week until last night, our plan had been to spend our last day in Lassen National Park, on the theory that more wildflowers would be out since last week when we visited. But after seeing the snowstorm that hit the mountain on Tuesday, and on the evidence of the wildflowers at lower altitudes, we decided last night to skip this. Instead, we decided to explore the rivers and creeks in the vicinity of the beautiful waterfall we visited yesterday. Our drive through that area proved to us that it was wetter than any other area we'd been in. Furthermore, I wanted to visit that waterfall again -- both for the simple enjoyment of it, and to get some photos in case the ones I deleted last evening prove unrecoverable. So I planned a complicated journey for our day, full of optional side-trips that depended on scouting streams to see if they were flowing. The majority of the streams here are intermittent, generally flowing only as the snow melts or during a rainy season -- and the majority of them were already dry this year.
We left going east on 172, then east on 36, going a little ways past St. Bernard to the point where Marian Creek crossed the road. The creek was completely dry, but we decided to drive to higher reaches of the creek anyway, on the theory that the higher sections of the creek might be flowing, but being absorbed by the ground on the way down (this is not uncommon in this sort of country). So we headed north on the unnamed logging road that intersects 36 a short way west of Marian creek, and followed it up to where it crosses the creek. There the road appeared to dead-end, with no sign of the intersection the map showed. I got out and did some reconnoitering on foot, and spotted the road we were trying to turn onto, about 100 feet away on the other side of the dry creek bed, and uphill a bit. There really was no connecting road, but a little four-wheeling got us onto the other road -- some real "off roading". The new road wound uphill, following two different tributaries of Marian Creek, both bone dry. This whole area offered little of interest to a couple of wildflower hunters -- a single Indian paintbrush plant was the only color we saw. The road eventually turned into Forest Service 28N83, which we stayed on until it hit 29N17, which we followed for quite a ways, over the saddle between Ice Cave Mountain and North Stover Mountain, until the intersection with an unnamed connector to 28N61, on the north face of Ice Cave Mountain. This road wound east to what we hoped were the rushing headwaters of a major creek -- but no, this was bone dry as well. A short way later, we turned left on G, heading west along and across another bone dry creek. This was getting monotonous! We'd driven quite a way at this point, and still were not finding any flowers at all. This continued all the way back to the intersection with 29N63 at Wilson. Despite finding no flowers, we enjoyed the views of Lassen and the beautiful forest -- but it wasn't what we were craving...
At Wilson, we stopped for a minute to photograph the odd and unexplained machine I described yesterday. Then we continued on 29N18, the road we were on yesterday. It passed through an area with numerous possibilities for side-trips to water, and we'd tried none of them yesterday. Our first attempt was on 29N23, still on the south side of the Feather River basin. Just before we turned northwest on this road, we remarked to each other that the flora was distinctly different here than it had been for the entire trip until we got to Wilson. There it made a sudden shift to denser, lusher, healthier trees and a much denser understory. We also saw that the soil had changed, which may be the entire explanation (soils are often very variable in volcanic areas). When we got to the creek on 29N23, it was flowing -- the first water we'd seen since we turned onto the gravel roads hours ago. And there were flowers, including a couple of species new to us. There were also mosquitos -- the first we'd encountered on this trip, and they were to plague us the rest of the day. Most likely there had just today been enough warm weather for the mosquito eggs to hatch and deliver the little devils up to us. But we were delighted to find water (at last!), and flowers, and we spent a happy half hour or so in this area. 
Next we got back on 29N18 and kept going west. We continued on as it looped to the north, passed our waterfall from yesterday, and headed east until we got to the point where the North Arm of Rice Creek crossed the road. This stream was strongly flowing, so we took 29N18A north from its intersection with 29N18 just west of the creek. We drove the length of it that passes alongside the creek, stopping at several points where we could see a way through the willow and alder to get to the stream itself. We met a couple of fishermen on these stops, and more later in the day; they all had the same complaint we did -- the damnable mosquitos were eating us alive! Nevertheless, the stops were enjoyable on several counts. First, the stream itself was beautiful, with the rushing waters tumbling over rocks and rock shelves, or sliding down chutes carved over time in the lava. This stream, we speculate, is powerful enough to scour its banks every spring, as there was relatively little herbacious life alongside the stream. The area around the stream was wetter than elsewhere, and there were some marshy spots; these were full of plant life, some of which was in bloom. Furthermore, we found flowers even well away from the stream, including an interesting display of larkspur that was growing only through the patchy prostrate manzanita ground cover. We're guessing that it is moister under the manzanita, and that this allows the larkspur to thrive there. Whatever the cause, it was an odd sight to see -- manzanita with (apparently) brilliant blue larkspur blossoms!
After we left the North Arm, we headed west on 29N18, back toward our waterfall, with the objective of taking every side road we could find that crossed or went near that same creek (the South Arm of the Rice Creek). First we tried heading south on 29N18D, which crosses Bunchgrass Creek twice on its way to Rice Creek. Bunchgrass Creek had a small flow, about the same as a dozen or so hoses turned on full blast, and was only interesting for the bright green algae (I think) that grew in its waters, swaying in the currents and eddies. Further down 29N18D, we ran into fallen trees across the road; some of these looked like they'd been there for years. The first two were so rotten that despite being over a foot in diameter, I could easily break the trunk apart into chunks I could toss off to the side of the road. The third one was more formidable -- a fresh fall, with the trunk still strong ... and about 18 inches in diameter. I tied ropes around it and backed my truck up to try to move it to the side; it moved about a foot and stopped hard, and my rope snapped -- sounded almost like a gunshot as it came flying back to the truck. On inspection (which I coulda shoulda done before I'd started!) I could see that the trunk was wedged between two large trees in such a way that moving it toward me would be impossible. That tree would have to be cut, and I didn't even have a hand saw with me, much less a chain saw (the instrument of choice in such a situation). So we gave up, headed back to 29N18, and continued west.
Our next attempt was on 29N18C, a much shorter road, and clearly not often used as it was partly overgrown with conifer saplings. It went downhill as we went toward the creek, and was muddy in spots, which is always a bit worrisome as slippery mud on a steep uphill is a challenge even with four wheel drive. But we charged over the mud (momentum is your friend on mud) and down the hill a couple hundred yards -- only to run into a gigantic fallen tree across the road. This would take a BIG chainsaw and a winch or skidder to move; we gave up and turned tail. I charged the muddy sections at the highest speed that felt safe (about 25 mph), and we got across and back up to 29N18 without incident. We continued west, heading now for roads that went upstream.
Our next attempt was finally successful, heading north on 29N40. This got us to several points of access to the creek, all in very pretty whitewater settings with small falls. The plant life around the stream was lush and many things were in bloom; once again, even uphill away from the stream we found flowers. The only fly in the ointment was the mosquitos -- they were chewing us up. My father had a two-pronged strategy for saving himself from the mosquitos: (1) He wore his jacket, pulled his hands inside the cuffs and clenched them shut, pulled his hat down as low as it would go, and turned the jacket color up. (2) He stayed near me, as the mosquitoes liked my sleeveless arm and unprotected face and neck, and would go to me instead of him if they had a choice. My dad kept up an unending monologue about the virtues and success of his method, laughing and smiling, all the while the mosquitos were sucking my vital essence. Despite those pesky mosquitos (who were almost certainly Democrats, and probably French to boot), we clambered all over the rocks to see all the things to see.
After this, we headed back down to 29N18 and our waterfall. We saved this for as close to the end of the day as we could, as we knew it would be great. And it was great, even though this was our second visit (there's nothing that beats the first discovery of something beautiful). We re-explored the whole thing, top to bottom; I took a bazillion photos to make up for the possible loss of yesterday's. My father was fairly tired after yesterday's longish hike, but he still made it up and down and sideways all over the waterfall, with the help of a walking stick he'd discovered at one of our stops. He gets around pretty good for someone who is older than most dirt. We found the beauty of this place undiminished, and in some ways even enhanced -- I think because of the diffuse light we had today (because of a thick overcast that came in the afternoon) versus the bright sunlight of yesterday. We ended our visit by sitting for a while on rocks along the side of the pool at the bottom of the falls, letting the sights and sounds of the spot seep into us for a while. Finally we left, knowing that this was probably the last really beautiful spot we'd visit on this vacation, as tomorrow we head for home...
We then retraced our path, first west on 29N18, then looping south and finally east to Wilson. Then we headed downhill past Wilson Lake on 29N63 to the intersection with 29N19. Just east of Wilson Lake, the map shows an ice cave, and I wanted to see if we could find it, and if it had blue ice. Many years ago, my family visited Craters of the Moon National Park, and in there visited a fascinating ice cave with abundant blue ice, just like I've seen since then in the arctic. I was hoping that's what this ice cave was like, and I was encouraged by the thought that someone found this ice cave interesting enough to name the whole mountain after it. Further along that road there was a peculiarly flat valley with a creek called Lost Creek, and we were curious about that as well. First we zoomed down to the area starting near Willow Creek Campground (which is itself a very pretty spot, under the pines). Lost Creek seems to have gotten its name by its behavior when it dries in this area, which is exactly what was happening on our visit: as the flow stops in this very flat area, the creek stops and shrinks to a series of odd-shaped (and shrinking) little ponds. The creek is lost, get it? The area proved uninteresting from a wildflower perspective (though it did have a couple of species there that we didn't expect to see at such a low altitude), and it wasn't as pretty as other places we'd been today, so we turned around and searched for the little road that leads to a point near the ice cave on the map. This road is unnamed on the map, but starts from a point just west of the intersection with 29N19B. We found the road, but it had been deliberately blocked off with a large pile of dirt and boulders -- very annoying. We searched in vain for some other access, but that blocked off road was all there was, and neither of us felt like trekking a mile or more to see the cave. So we gave up, and that marked the end of our day's explorations -- from here, we hightailed it back home to our cabin, taking 29N19 to 29N63, to 36, to 172 and home.
Once home, I walked over to the office for our cabins to check out. The folks there seemed to be impressed with how busy we were -- they never saw us, as we got up and left before they opened every day were were here, and most days we didn't return until after they were closed. Then I cooked a chicken, rice, and succotash supper for us, and my father and I started preparing to depart. There was packing and organizing to do, dishes to wash, and other such chores. We finished all them and headed for an early sleep, as we planned to get up early to pack the truck and start our long drive home...
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