Day Six - Monday June 25

At this point in my journey my main goal was just to get home. My goal for the day was to get to Klamath Falls, Oregon, but I was pretty sure that I would be able to get past that. So again I set out at the crack of dawn to get ahead of the traffic. I made my way up through the mountains and the forests to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Apparently Lassen Mountain is a dormant volcano that erupted not so long ago (in geologic terms at least.) The biggest thing I noticed about this park was the extreme elevation. I had been up and over numerous mountains and passes, but this was much higher than I had been previously on my trip. When I entered the park I was at 3,000 feet elevation, but at it's highest point I was all the way up at 10,000 feet! And yes, there is snow on the ground in June at that elevation. There was even a small mountain lake that was still partially frozen. The best part of all this was I had neglected to monitor my fuel and my fuel light came on while I was still climbing the mountain. I did my best to conserve gas and came down the back side of the mountain with the clutch in as much as possible. Lucky for me they had a gas station and market on the far side of the mountain so I was able to refuel on gasoline, snickers and beef jerky.

At this point I was pretty much out of the California mountains so I headed up to Klamath Falls at full throttle. All this speeding was bound to catch up to me, and it did. When I was only about 5 miles from the Oregon border I got tagged by CHP for going 80 in a 60 zone. I tried to talk him into letting me go because I was almost out of his jurisdiction, but he didn't care. Oh well, just the cost of doing business I suppose. It was still early afternoon by the time I got to Klamath Falls so I just got lunch and headed out to Crater Lake.

I had been to Crater Lake once when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember it so it was nice to go back and check it out. The lake is just an amazing color of blue. The only source of water for the lake is rain and the melting snow of the mountains that ring the lake so it is extremely pure. They don't allow anyone or any boats in the lake so that keeps it extremely clean and even from the ridge you can see way down into the water. I got some great pictures then headed off to Bend for the night. It took about two hours to get to Bend from the lake, and it was some of the most boring riding of the entire trip. Long flat straight roads with just enough traffic to make going very fast impossible. I got a room in Bend and headed to the local McMenamins for some dinner, ready to head home the next day.

Day Six Route

Pictures