We recently realized that we’ve never been to, or even heard people talking about, the northeastern portion of California. Looking at a map of the state we realized that we’ve been almost everywhere else — we live near San Francisco, we used to live near Sacramento, we’ve walked 1700 miles from the southern to northern tip of the state, we’ve backpacked through the coast, the Sierra, the Cascades, and the desert, and we’ve even taken a few trips to LA… so, this was an inexcusable omission that needed to be resolved. That was doubly true because northeastern California is actually the part of the US that has been continuously inhabited for the longest amount of time; The Modoc people, and their ancestors before them, have lived in the region for thousands of years. We had a hunch that if it’s good enough to call home for thousands of years, it must be worth a visit, and that absolutely proved to be true!
After doing some research, we decided to head to Lava Beds National Monument. We read that the park has over 500 mapped caves, ancient cliff drawings, and a wilderness area right in the middle of it. The day after learning about Lava Beds, we packed up our bags and hit the road.
Our Approximate Route:
We made this route ahead of time and more-or-less stuck to it. It was excellent, but note that the campground and visitor center is the only place we found to get water, so plan accordingly.
Day 1 – Miles 0-5.5
We spent most of today driving. We left early in the morning and drive to Lava Beds took us 9.5 hours! We stopped a few miles before arriving to grab final “supplies” like tater tots and we topped off all of our water bottles because we don’t expect the route to have many water sources. We parked, did a final check of our gear, and hit the trail at about 5pm. There was a trail register at the start of the wilderness that we signed — our names are the only ones on the page, but we don’t know how long it has been since it’s been changed.
We were walking for less than two miles when we hit the first cave. We realized that that the topo maps built into our watches actually show the caves on the Basemap! That’s convenient, because it means when there’s a cave out-of-sight but near the trail, we can still find it. Unfortunately, the cave had a gate locking it. Hopefully they aren’t all locked! There are tons of white moths on the shrubs that fly away in a big mass, but only when we get extremely close. We continued on for only a few more miles and decided to camp. It’s totally empty out here. There are cinder cones in the distance and lava flows all around. Sunset was beautiful. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll find some open caves to explore! We had a mystery for dinner that we barely remember assembling. It has come along on several trips, but since we aren’t sure what’s in it it always ends up being the meal we save until the end and then don’t eat. Still, it was actually very good!
Day 2 – Miles 5.5 – 23.1
We intended to get up as early as possible so we could start walking before it got too hot, but that didn’t happen. We were tired from a busy work week and needed to recover! We started walking at about 7:30, and it wasn’t long before we hit a MASSIVE cave. Like all of the caves here, it is a lava tube — as lava flowed across this landscape, the surface hardened while hot lava still flowed beneath it, essentially forming giant pipes that hot lava traveled through. Today, it was just a big opening in the ground that we walked down and explored. It seemed big enough for a train to travel through! We didn’t go too far in because we don’t have powerful lights, helmets, or caving experience, but we can only imagine how far it goes. Based on a map we looked at before starting, we know that some of these caves travel for miles underground.
Right as we exited the wilderness we hit a second cave, called “Skull Cave”. This one has stairs and a sidewalk making it accessible, so we went all the way in. At the bottom the temperature was below freezing and there were icicles hanging from the ceiling! There was also a pile of animal bones that’s been down here for who-knows how long.
We hiked on to the visitor center and loaded up on a ton of water (and cold soda) before starting our hike out of Lava Beds National Monument and into the adjacent Modoc National Forest. Our next goal is to make it up “Glass Mountain”, which is made of obsidian! We hiked up for a while, made it to a forested area, and decided to call it a night WAY earlier than we would on a typical thruhike. Maybe the FKT hikes are getting to us and we’re ready to take it easy for a change. Our campsite is surrounded by trees and beautiful. Dinner was curry rice. YUM!
Day 3 – Mile 23.1-45.3
We hadn’t realized when we went to sleep just how close we were to the obsidian on Glass Mountain! It was less than a mile before we hit the giant pile of shiny black rock that makes up the mountain. Our campsite last night was nice, but if we had gone on just a little farther, it would have been right at the base of a huge obsidian slope. The approach to Glass Mountain was entirely on pumice, which looks like a boring rock until you pick it up and it’s practically weightless. It is like hard styrofoam! As we walked an empty gravel road up the mountain an adventurous couple drove by in a pickup truck with paddle-boards on the roof. They hopped out and handed us chilled energy drinks. Thank you! These were SO GOOD on the hot day, especially since we were already getting low on water and far from the only source (the visitor center… there are no natural water sources here).
We didn’t go all of the way to the top of the mountain because the road dead-ended and we weren’t about to scale the sharp obsidian, but the view from close to the top was amazing! We could see the entire wilderness area we walked through yesterday. While looking at it we realized the area has to be the caldera of an ancient volcano. We had enough cell service from the top to look it up, and sure enough, we were right. This is the caldera of the Medicine Lake volcano, which is the largest volcano in the Cascade Range (by volume).
We walked on for several miles before returning to the visitor center and were traumatized to find the vending machine completely sold out of everything but coffee. It was 5pm, so we opted for water. We had been looking forward to soda all day. From there, we explored Mushpot Cave, which is very accessible with a lit path running through it. We walked back into the wilderness, but we’re crossing it via a different path than before. We passed the opening to the most impressive cave we’ve seen yet — Post Office Cave. This one has to be big enough for a jet! We hiked until past sunset, which is our more typical hiking schedule. For dinner we had creamy pasta. Yum!
Day 3 – Mile 45.3 – 58.3
Today is my (Tim) Birthday! Renee made me “No Normal” coffee paste, which is surprisingly good, and then revealed that she’s been carrying oreos and sour candies for me the whole trip. This was a great treat for two reasons:
- I’m always the one who makes the coffee, so it was fun to be catered to.
- Ever since our first trip that fell on my birthday (the JMT, 10 years ago), it’s been practically a tradition that Renee finds a way to surprise me with candies… but it was so hectic getting on the road this time that I really didn’t expect she’d had a chance to pick anything up, so I really was surprised. Also, unlike on that first trip (when she had found a way to hide the candy in my backpack), this time she was the one who carried the extra weight for 45 miles. Thanks Renee!!!!
We passed several small caves and one very large cave this morning, but sadly the large cave had a sign stating it was closed to prevent the spread of a fungal disease to its bats. The day got hotter and hotter as we hiked, but for the first time since starting the hike, we had tons of water for the distance we needed to cover and didn’t have to ration. It was easy walking on an overall downhill route, so we were moving fast. We took a break to eat cold-soaked ramen. It’s always remarkable how good cold ramen tastes on a hot day — it’s the salt!
We made it back to the car at about 2pm and started the LONG drive back home. On the way, we saw a forest fire near Mt. Shasta. We looked it up — it’s been named the Root fire. It grew from nothing to the picture below in just a few hours. (And as of 24 hours later, it had already to hundreds of acres.)
Overall Thoughts
Lava Beds completely blew our minds with its uniqueness. Caves, Obsidian, thousands of years of history, and a totally-remote wilderness that’s out there to explore. We really can’t explain why neither of us have ever heard people talking about the place, or really anywhere in the region. There’s northern California, southern California, the beach, the Hollywood, and the Sierra, but somehow the northeast corner has practically fallen off the map. This is a mistake. North eastern California is remarkable, and we can’t wait to come back to explore more of it!
A Video of the Entire Trip
In addition to the short videos we’ve been posting for years, we recently started documenting our trips in a longer format. Let us know what you think!
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