Lassen Volcanic National Park

We climbed Mt. Lassen today as a family.

All 7 of us.

It was long & steep & awesome.

And now all of my kids can say “I climbed a volcano.”

How cool is that?

It all started several months ago when we drove by Mt. Shasta.

The Little Man decided he wanted to climb that mountain!

And every time we drove past while we were moving he kept asking when I was going to take him to climb that mountain?

Well.

I explained to him that Shasta was probably a little beyond our capabilities.

He assured me otherwise.

Uh huh.

But, I told him, I did know of a mountain that we could climb: Mt. Lassen.

I climbed it way back about 17 years ago.

I remembered it as being long & steep but not hard.

So I thought that would be perfect for us.

So today we did it. We climbed a mountain.

A volcano to be exact.

The southern most peak in the Cascade Range.

It took us 3 hours to go up & 2 to come down.

The Biscuit made the trip in his backpack - all but the very beginning & very end where he walked.

But The Little Man hiked.

He hiked that entire mountain up & down on his own 2 legs.

All but about a half mile section where he got a piggy-back ride from his biggest brother.

He determined to climb a mountain & by golly he did it.

Pretty impressive for a 4 year old.

People on the trail were quick to give him an encouraging word as he made his way.

One group of women hikers from Germany were particularly impressed with his good attitude.

It was a good day.

The only bummer was later at the gift shop.

I had promised my kids that if they all made it to the peak I would buy them a t-shirt that said “I climbed a volcano”.

I still have mine from when I first did it (in fact I wore it today :)).

But when we finished up our day & headed to the gift shop they didn’t have any!

I even asked the cashier & she said they no longer carry them. Even though, according to her, whenever they did they always sold like hotcakes.

Which kinda seems to me to be something you would want to carry?

Maybe that’s just me…

So after moping around about that they all picked out different shirts that they liked & a couple buttons that said “I climbed the volcano”.

Care to guess how much 6 t-shirts cost at a National Park?

Uh huh. Yeppers.

It was pretty outrageous.

We don’t do that sort of thing very often but this was a special day & sometimes, if you can, it’s good to splurge.

For a long time we never could afford to but now-a-days, every so often, we do. And it’s fun.

So we are pretty universally tired, sore & sunburned.

But we can proudly say “We climbed a volcano.”

Can you? :)

Blessings.