Subway Caves

Tuesday, Sept.21 - On to Quincy, CA!

We headed south again on I 5 to Mount Shasta. Every time we see this beautiful volcano we still gasp at its enormous size. At 14,000 ft, it must rank as one of the highest volcanoes on the continent. Its glaciated upper half always makes for the best photos on a clear day.

From Mount Shasta we headed eastward on Highway 89. One of our stops was the “Subway Caves”, located about 70 miles east of Shasta, near Hat Creek.

 This cave was formed out of volcanic activity. Being in the cave was like being inside a hugh winding pipe that was ½ full of cement that some inexperienced cement worker had forgotten to trowel. It was definitely a flat surface to walk on but very rough in places! We came prepared with flashlights because I had been in the cave 7 years ago with Chay. At that time, even with flash lights we found it so black inside that we “chickened out” as the intense blackness of the cave engulfed our movements once we were past the first bend in the cave.

Even this time, I had a moment where I almost went back, but Ade figured we should go a little farther, and then suddenly we saw a small bit of light in front of us marking the end of the cave! This cave is quite an experience and we would recommend it to anyone who has interest in caves and volcanic activity. Also, the lush, but dry vegetation in this region was very interesting to look at while you were walking the trails.

This supposedly dry arid area also had lots of wildlife and birds.

Our next short stop was at Lassen's National Volcanic Park.

This place is truly a hikers mecca. It is the only place in the world with all 4 types of volcanoes in one area. Many eruptions have taken place over tens of thousands of years, with the last eruption taking place between 1914 and 1916. Amazingly an amateur volcanologist captured these eruptions with beautiful pictures over the few minutes that the largest eruption took. It was an eruption on the scale of Mount St Helens, and it was a miracle that the guy lived to develop the pictures! He spent the rest of his life in the area, describing the eruption to tourists of the day. In addition to the volcanoes, there were hotsprings, and boiling mud pots in the park, very much like you see at Yellowstone, but on a smaller scale.  Unlike Yellowstone, the only wildlife we saw were a few mule deer.

Finally we continued on our way and spent the night at a very private and well-kept rest stop just past the town of Quincy, the home of the largest sawmill in California. The whole area around Quincy is blessed with enormous stands of very large fir trees, much larger than I have seen in most parts of British Columbia. A logging truck would usually only carry between 9 and 15 logs.  However, like BC, the logging industry is suffering and the mill is only working part-time now with the town slowly dying as a result.