· Date: Tuesday June 18, 2019
· Where: Red Bluff, California to Burney, California
· Total Distance Covered: 120 miles
· Running Partner: John-Hanson
Today was another early morning where we woke up before five. The three-hour time difference from the east coast must have been helping me adjust to the early mornings because five felt late. All of us were excited because today would be the first day that we would be entering a national park. The route for Team Boston brought us through several different state parks and national parks throughout the summer. Today, we would be going through Lassen National Forest which is a part of Lassen Volcanic National Park. In other words, we would be running close to a volcano. I was beyond excited.
Running through a national park was not quite what we expected though. John-Hanson and I were running partners in the second van which ran into all the trouble. Logistically, it was a terrible day. As usual for the second van, we drove to the halfway point and started running from there. This was a part of the road that was miles into the national forest. Little did we know, we were not allowed to run in a national forest. I still don’t know if these are against the rules Ulman put in place or against the park rules. Regardless, we were told to stop running. This was extremely disappointing as this was the first time that there was a significant portion of the route that we were unable to run. Furthermore, John-Hanson and I had already gotten a taste of what it was like running in this area during two separate runs. The entirety of the second van had completed half of their miles for the day before being told to reroute.
On the bright side, running through the road in Lassen National Forest is something that not a lot of others have ever been able to do. We were already on a once in a lifetime adventure, but we just ran four miles in an area where no one ever runs. Although today I am still disappointed about not being able to continue running in this area, I am grateful for the miles we were able to run there. The scenery was stunning. This type of forest did not compare to the White Mountains where my family would vacation every year. We were running at over five thousand feet of elevation and this completely changed the air and the climate. I think this is what made the experience incomparable to the White Mountains. You could tell that the environment had been untouched. Even the trees close to the road were aged with little evidence of human activity. The woods quickly became dense once it got within a few feet of the road. There was no possibility of full daylight once stepping inside of them. It was crazy and nothing like I had seen before. Not to mention, running at elevation was also something I had never done before. Back home in Connecticut, the elevation I usually ran at hardly ever reached more than one thousand feet above sea level. My lungs, my heart, and my muscles were not used to this and we were all working hard. John-Hanson and I talked, but we didn’t talk much because we were out of breath. Each of the four miles was a steady uphill for the entirety of the run. I would do anything to go back and run here.
After being told that we had to reroute, the van stopped to come up with a solution. We decided we would drive back to run a few miles with the first van until we both got to the National Forest. From there, we would drive into the forest and continue driving the route we were supposed to run, until we could resume running. Any miles that we drove we would make up on our way back to the host. Driving backward was extremely depressing and the van lost a little bit of morale. Looking back, I was disappointed by this.
As we started doing miles with the first van, we came across a bunch of huge hills. The hills in this section of the route were bigger than what we were running in the national forest. I guess before you run at five thousand feet of elevation, you have to run some pretty big hills to get there. I kept looking over at John-Hanson as we sat in the van, telling him how excited I was to get to run some of these hills at elevation. I think he thought I was joking until he realized I was dead serious. I think the whole van thought I was joking. Throughout the day, I would run our miles with John-Hanson and then get out of the van with another running pair if we knew there was a big hill coming up. I loved the challenge of hills. I’m not sure how much extra mileage I did that day but running those monster hills with everyone was a blast. I had to know what it felt like to run at elevation, but also what it felt like to get that high up too. This was what I pictured when I thought of running across the country.
Soon though, we returned to the entrance of Lassen National Forest and had to stop running. As we drove further into the forest and back over the areas, we had run earlier that morning, we stopped at places we found interesting. We stopped at little waterfalls and areas to pull off and look at the view. At one point, we were pulled off at a viewing point and all we could hear were goats. We couldn’t figure out what it was until we looked down into the valley and saw a whole bunch of them chewing grass on the mountainside. I thought it was super funny.
Eventually, we got to the ranger station and visitor center for Lassen Volcanic National Park. Although we weren’t running into this portion of the park as we pictured ourselves doing this morning, we were all super excited to look around. At this point, we were so high up in elevation that in some places, there was a foot of snow on the ground. If you looked passed the ranger station, you could see the snow creeping its way up the side of the volcano. There were pine trees everywhere and there were also so many people. I had never seen so many people in a park before. It was so crowded!
We talked with some of the Rangers in the station and told them about our situation. They explained that even driving our route we had intended to run would be impossible. Originally, we were supposed to run up to the summit and take the road down the other side to continue running to the host. This would have brought us to Lassen Peak, an elevation over ten thousand feet. According to the Rangers, the roads weren’t cleared yet.
Confused, we asked what they meant by “not cleared.”
They laughed and said “The park has a team working every day to clear the roads from the snow. For now, you can go about six miles up the road until you hit a wall of snow.”
We thanked them for explaining and then talked some more to get adequate directions to the host. It wasn’t until later that we learned the snow eight miles up the road was twenty feet deep. There’s no way we would’ve been able to manage that.
When we took a closer look at the alternate directions given to us by the rangers, we realized we had a lot of ground to cover before we made it back to the host. But we would only be in this park for today, so we wanted to explore a little as well. We decided to drive up the volcano side a little and take advantage of the views. Partway up the switchback road, there was a pull-off area where we could walk up to the sulfur hot spots.
If you picture what a rotten egg smells like, then picture an entire barn filled with rotten eggs. That is exactly what this area of the park smelled like. No trees or plants were growing in the sulfur hot spots or the surrounding areas. None of them could manage to live in this type of environment.
A sulfur hot spot was created due to the volcanic nature of the area. Volcanic heat and gases rising through the Earth’s crust would mix with water deep underground. This causes the rising gases to force their way through the cracks in the volcanic rock and release steam onto the surface of the Earth. In some areas, the boiling water was released, and this would create what is called a mud pot. The mud pots change with seasons and combine with the atmosphere and rainwater. This allows different microorganisms to live in them which combined with the minerals from the Earth’s crust, gives off the sulfur smell. Eventually, clay is created. Some of this clay was colorful because of the different minerals that were forced out of the Earth. It was a beautiful area, it just smelled horrific and was extremely dry. The sulfur hot spots and the mud pots appeared all around the park and caused a man named Mathias Supan to create a Sulphur mine in the area in mid eighteen hundred. Now, there was no mine anymore and it was just a tourist area. The Sulphur extracted was used to create medicines and chemicals.
As we looked around the area, we asked a tourist to take a picture of us. She happily took a picture and asked us where we were from. When we answered that we were from all over, we told her what we were doing. The woman and her family surprised us all and started crying. She was a cancer survivor herself and was appreciative of what we were doing. We stayed and talked with her for a while and the next day we ran for her and her family. Someone on the team got her phone number and would send her updates periodically throughout the rest of the summer. I thought meeting up with this woman and her family was so coincidental, but also fate. It just shows what a connection you can make with people if you stop and talk for a little bit. Everyone is impacted by cancer in one way or another and this just proves it even more. The fact that the person we randomly asked to take a picture of us had this type of connection was wild.
At one point on the way up, we pulled off at a lookout area. There was snow everywhere and someone threw a snowball. Soon, we had a snowball fight in the middle of June. This is still one of my favorite 4K memories. We were all wearing shorts and a tank top, but we were pelting snowballs. I couldn’t believe it.
Progressing up the mountainside, the road got narrower and narrower and the air colder and colder. In some parts, there was no guardrail and there was just a complete drop-off. I couldn’t help but get nervous. When I looked out to the right, all I saw was the sky and the surrounding mountains. It didn’t look like there was any road beneath the wheels of the van or anything. That’s how close to the edge we were. I thought of my mom who I knew would feel the same way as me while my Dad would have loved this view. I was so appreciative I wasn’t driving, but the views were amazing. I couldn’t believe how high up we were. I knew that these types of mountains are exactly what my brother Kevin, who is a member of San Diego Mountain Rescue, always climbs. It blew my mind. When we did get back down to the Ranger station and out of the park, we all applauded Mason for his driving.
We decided to turn around before we had gotten to the end of the cleared road because it was getting late. Our ears were popping and a few of us had headaches. I was worried that with this rapid gain in elevation maybe we would get altitude sickness. Luckily, this was not the case and I am still unsure if this worry was completely warranted or not.
Leaving Lassen Volcanic National Park, I knew I wanted to go back. The hour or so we had spent exploring the sulfur hot spots and the road to Lassen Peak was not enough. I wanted to be able to say I had explored the whole park. But that was not what we were there for. We soon resumed our running and made it to the host for the night. With the necessary detour, we didn’t make it to the host until after seven at night. John-Hanson and I were lucky enough to be the last running pair of the day. This meant that our last miles were spent on the roads leading to the host. We finished running for the day when we hit the church’s parking lot, our host for the night.
The feeling of running into the host was super special. To see all the vans already there and have some of our teammates waiting for us was the best feeling ever. Despite all the rerouting, backtracking, and re-planning we had done to get to the host, running into their parking lot made us both feel accomplished. I distinctively remember giving John-Hanson a huge high-five as we finished our miles. We had a lot of great discussions that day and shared a lot of personal moments that influenced our decisions to run this summer. We loved running with each other today and we were both looking forward to the next time we were going to run together again.
Before the congregation had dinner ready, they told us to shower, get cleaned up, and to relax. I took the time to call Annalyse as I hadn’t spoken with her in days and all the showers were occupied. With the past few days, my reception had been next to nothing. I think it was because this part of the country was so minimally populated. Even then, I still had to find a corner of the parking lot to get a good reception and to keep a connection. A few others had the same idea and we were scattered throughout the parking lot while another group went to go jump into Burney Falls. Burney Falls was a massive waterfall with a swimming area that was within walking distance of our host. Catching up with Annalyse was something that I had hoped I would be able to do all day, so I was extremely grateful for the reception.
Soon, our time was cut short and the dinner was ready. It was a taco bar that had everything you could imagine. This church was a place Pacific Crest Trail through-hikers often took a night to rest and recover before moving on. So, the church and its’ community were used to taking care of sweaty, tired people. Their hospitality, generosity, and appreciation for what we were doing were the best yet.
The community dinners at each host were something I was a little nervous about. Anytime I had shared my story with a stranger in the past or explained why I was doing 4K I always found it difficult. But with these people and the atmosphere that both their community and our team brought forth, my anxiety was let go. The dinners, especially this one, turned out to be something I always enjoy reflecting upon.
As we ate, I talked with some locals who turned out to be on the crew clearing snow from the top of Lassen Peak. They laughed when we told them we had intended on running the road to the top. We shared stories and where we were from. We joked, we laughed, and we hugged. We even played a game of knockout with the parents and their little kids.
As I thought about the day’s events this night, I realized that it would be tough to put any of this into words. The generosity, love, and support that people display each day to our team, as well as the cancer community, can’t be described. There is no way to thank everyone appropriately.
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