A Tuesday full of Enthusiasm! Ice Caves, Lakes, and Falls..

We took this Tuesday by storm, and hit multiple awesome places. First, we went to a neat little cave that had ice. Very appropriately, this cave is called "The Ice Cave". It is somewhere in the middle of no where (actually, it was located to the side of Wilson Lake, which is part of Lassen National Forest). Check out the fancy sign pointing out the location of said ice cave!

The directions are below, and hilarious, so I'm including them. Besides, we may want to go back one day.

• At Bruce Rd & hwy 32, travel east on Hwy 32 for 50.3 miles
• Turn left onto Hwy 36 and travel 5.8 miles
• You'll go past Gurnsey campground, and a big open meadow before you see the road on the right hand side
• Turn right onto Wilson Lake Road (gravel) for 2 miles. You'll see a parking area/loop on the right and a large dry lake bed/meadow
• Leave the parking area and you'll see a road that goes across the dry lake bed.
• Follow the road across the lake bed and along the far perimeter of the lake.
• At the tree line continue on the road and go into the forest on the right.
• The road will fork (a very dusty area that will make your shoes filthy) go left.
• Continue until you see a sign that says "Trail starts here!"
• Take the trail that starts there - 0.2 miles.
• Don't fall into the hole... it's a cave

There's ice in that.. see?

 Also, mud. And a hole for convenient cave access.

 Here is the lake, in all of it's glory. At first glance you think that it's just a dried up pile of nothing, but there was plenty of shoe sucking mud in that bad boy, plus some smelly green grass type of thing that was struggling to stay alive. We took the dirt path skirting the 'lake' the trip in, but got all adventurous on the way out, which is where we encountered the suckage.

I can't forget to mention the bear tracks: Chris spotted these on the way back to the truck. Yay?

Next, we drove up to Lake Almanor, where we got ice-cream and drove around desperately trying to find access to the lake, but managing to be cut off at every turn. We ended up driving out a bit, and found an access point away from all of the commercial stuff, and Chris was able to get his feet wet (the whole point on finding the lake, haha!) but it smelled like stagnant butt hole so I kept out.

Also, there was a stump with little yellow flowers growing in it. Behold!

The next part of our day was back to my favourite, Deer creek! This time we were on the other side of the highway, and on the look out for the more impressive Upper falls, and generally just explored around a little. Such a beautiful place, and as you can see, I took quiet a few photos. I really, really like this place :) What's not to love?

There's nothing but pretty along Deer creek, and it deserves to be plastered on the internet.

More water and rocks and such..

MORE!

And, the falls! I didn't forget about them ;)

Everyone should make their way to Deer creek. It's great. So that's where I'm ending this post ;)

Head Waters of Deer Creek

This Tuesday venture took us back to Deer creek, which I was super excited about. It was drizzling and wet the entire time, but it wasn't enough to deter us from going, and it really wasn't so bad. It's just mud, haha!

A little more of a drive than the first Deer creek hike, but really well worth it: the trail was a little more complicated, but nothing we'd call difficult. The rain was mild, and it made the views really quiet beautiful, however, I suspect it'd be beautiful no matter what the conditions were out here.

 

The trail varied from mud, to clay, to rocky slip and slides (see above), but was totally manageable the whole time. We also crossed over Deer creek a couple times, and wisely marked our turning points, because it was a bit overgrown and easily lost in the shuffle. Most of the trail was obvious though.

There are lots of camping spots out here, which are tempting too. This place has fun written all over it, and I'd like to go back here in a different season to see what it's like clear. Or in snow. Or whenever. 

 

Also, there were deer. :)

 

Yahi Trail - Bidwell Park

Hiking Tuesday! Today we stayed local, and hiked the Yahi trail in Bidwell park. This was my first time hiking pretty much anywhere in Bidwell, and it was a nice, easy introduction trail. You can essentially go as far as you desire on this trail, and we went up to Salmon hole (past Bear hole).

Another beautiful day, and the trail has a lot of shade, plus there are swimming holes: we swam at Salmon hole, and it was great! Didn't hurt that we were the only people up that far. There is a little climbing down to Salmon hole, but nothing difficult, and it was well worth it.

There were turtles sunning themselves at Bear hole; what's not to love about this place!? Super easy trail, very popular with the locals, and it's a great park. Can't wait to go back to this one :)

Lower Deer Creek Falls

The swimming hole :)

The Lower Deer Creek Falls is easily accessed right off highway 32 (near Chester, CA), and is about 4.6 miles out and back. The trail is easy, and there are lots of pretty spots along the way to the waterfall, and it's a good pick if you want a relaxing hike. This was our third date :)

   

The waterfall at the "end" of the hike is really pretty, but you can continue walking past this point, and apparently the trail becomes more difficult out past the fish ladder and falls. We plan on re-doing this hike at some point, and finding out how the rest of it is.

The falls!