Kids are in Spring break now!

California Poppy is getting blooming

Spring Break Now!

Kids are in Spring break this week.   We send kids to a spring camp during daytime.  This camp supposes to do various outdoor activities such as hiking.   However, due to rainy weather last a few days, they need to stay indoor.

The alternate location for the camping is near hills in the town.   Behind the building, there is hills and they are getting really green now.   One of symbol for spring in California is "California Poppy" that is an orange flower and we can see almost everywhere in the bay area in spring.

I started seeing the flowers a few weeks ago.  However, last a few days this week is getting back to cold weather with rain.   Today, I saw the flower is not blooming.

Mountains are getting much snow last a several days.  It is April, but it seems that all ski resorts in Tahoe area become really good condition, it could be one of the best this season.

Lassen Volcanic National Park is also getting much snow last a few days per a web cam.  If I have some time, I really want to go there one more time, it could be a day trip due to resuming Japanese school this weekend.....

Vegetable spaghetti

Vegetable Spaghetti

Vegetable spaghetti

Ingredients (for 4~6 serves)

• Onion　1　(200g / 0.44 lib)
• Tomato 4~5 (500g / 1.1 lib) 
• Garlic 2~3 pices
• Salt (1 Table spoon)
• Olive oil (4 Table spoon)
•  Black pepper (a little)

Directions

• Onion and Tomatoes are finely chopped like a small dice
• Put olive oil to a fly pan
• Crash garlic with a crasher and put it into the fly pan
• Stair fly garlic first for a few minutes
• Put chopped tomato and onion with salt
• Continue to stair flay for 15~20 minutes, till becoming a source
• boil spaghetti based on its instruction, typically it takes around 7~12 minutes
• Put boiled spaghetti to the fly pan

This is only vegetables, but it is really tasty.   It is also good to put some seafood, but I would recommend to try without seafood first.   It is simple and tasty. 

Introducing mountains in Japan (5) Chokai-san (Mt. Chokai)

Good for back-country skiing

Chokai-san (Mt. Chokai)

Location of Chokai-san

Chokai-san is located northern part of Japan, facing Japan sea.  In summer time, it is about 6~9 hours driving from Tokyo.  It is about 500+km from Tokyo.  So that it is not close to visit this mountain from Tokyo.   However, I like this mountain very much.   The primary reason is back-country skiing.  Due to so much snow during winter, this mountain is good for back-country skiing till late spring / early summer.  In May, there is typically a lot of snow and there are many back-country ski routes.

One of good course is from Chokai Blue line, where is west side of the mountain.  There is a lodge around highest elevation point of the road and people can park their car in a small parking lot.  Then climb up to the top.   It may take a several hours from the parking.   The top picture was taken on the way  to the top.  This is long and nice view to Japan Sea.

The other nice course is from the north side.   Harai-gawa is the trail head and there is a small lodge at the trail head as well.   There are a few parking lot near the lodge and people can reach to the top around a several hours as well.  But I guess from the north side, it could be a bit short than the west side approach.   Around the parking lot, it could be a good place to spend over night with camping.  However, the elevation is high and it could be cold during night.

The other option for the over night in this area could be the entrance of Chokai blue line.  This place is not high elevation and close to ocean.   It is possible to put a tent next the car in a parking lot.  The parking lot has a public restrooms.  In high season of back-country skiing, it is around April ~ June, there might be some people who are camping on the parking lot.

Hot springs

There are many hot-springs in this area.   After skiing, people can stop by one of hot-springs to enjoy nice Japanese culture over there.   There is a big one people can stop by near Yusa, where is close to Chokai blue line entrance and another one in Yajima, where is close to Hari-gawa side trail head.

To get some food, there is glossary store in Sakata-shi.   Along Route-8, you can find many shop and restaurants.

Summer time

I have not been there in summer time.  However, I can tell this mountain is also good for summer hiking as well.   There are many kinds of wild flowers in this area.   Also, people can try the same trail in summer time as well.  Since the mountain is very close to ocean, the view is very nice.


This mountain is really far from Tokyo area and it is not easy to access for foreign people.   However, the mountain is great and nice hot springs.   If you have a chance and enough time to spend over there, this could be one of great mountain to try in Japan!
  

Plastic boots

Plastic boots
they were broken last mounts after more than 20 years usage

Plastic Boots

When I actively went to mountains about 15 ~ 20 years ago, plastic boots are really popular for climbing on snow / ice.   Many people liked the benefit, like better water proof, better insulation, than a traditional leather boots.   The maintenance is also easy.

However around year 2000s, some people reported that older boots got suddenly broken.  It is nature of the plastic material.  So that many article worn to use older boots for mountain climbing.

My boots

I used to have a pair of mountaineering boots and a pair of back-country ski boots.  Due to an injury of a mountain accident, I had not had a chance to use the mountaineering boots and I gave them to a friend.   However, I kept the back country ski boots and kept using it a few times a year.  It's been more than 20 years.  I did not have any problem at all.

However, I went skiing last mounts.  I brought my old boots there and it looked all right.  I just put my feet into them and did not tighten the buckles.  I walked to the piste and try to tighten them when I started skiing.   When I tighten a buckle, the plastic part of a buckle was cut.  then cracking many portion and it was finally broken.    I do not complain this, but I think it is not very good if boots are broken in mountain.  In my case, this happened in a ski resort.  So that I can rent another boots from the shop or I just need to stop skiing.   But if it is in a mountain, even if the boots are broken, I need to walk back.  It is not easy to walk on snow with broken boots.  

Need to be careful to use plastic boots in back-country / mountains

It's been for a while, people are talking about a risk of plastic boots.   I recognized it and I tried to check it before use.   However, it looked all right and hard to tell it was going to be broken.

Nowadays, mountaineering boots is getting back to leather boots with Gore-Tex laminate.   I was looking for plastic boots for my spring activity.  But I could not find them any more.  So for mountaineering boots, I have a less concern.   People needs to use non-plastic boots.

Regular ski boots are usually used in a ski resort, so that this is also less concern.

For back-country ski boots, they are still plastic and people pay more attention of their boots.
I do not know how long people can use it.   In may case, I bought them around late 90's.  Since then I had been using them and there was no problem except last months.  Based on my experience, it is hard to tell if there is a problem or not.

I do not have a good solution / suggestion for this problem.  But I want to share this to other people.
It is hard to tell, but people need to be aware this.   It is hard to carry spare boots, only thing we could do would be carrying some repair kits to minimize risk.

Lassen Volcanic National Park ~ Where can we stay / eat?

Visitor Center at South entrance

Where can we stay when we visit the park?

Lassen Volcanic National park is located northern California.  From San Francisco bay area, it is about a several hours driving.   It is possible to do a day trip.  It might be easy to stay over night over there.   There are a couple options where we stay.

One is camping.   It is not too bad.  I guess most of time, it is not so cold in this season of a year.  However, it is better to have some experience camping on snow.   Some people just using RV car to stay.   A good thing for camping is staying in the park.   People can use their time efficiently.  It could be a bit hard if people have young kids or babies.

The other option could be staying hotel / motel.  The closest town near the south entrance could be Chester or Red Bluff.  We usually stay Chester since the town is closer to the park than Red Bluff.  Only problem is not many restaurants in the town.   We were told that the choice could be Chinese, Mexican, pizza, a stake house.   Last year, we went to a Mexican restaurant and it was not too bad.  Since a receptionist mentioned a Mexican, we thought it was the same one we went last year.  So that we went there, but the restaurant was closed.   It was another restaurant.   That restaurant was also OK.

Here is the one we went this time.   Mi Casita Restaurant
Here is a motel we stayed Best Western Rose Quartz Inn
 
There are some vacation houses.  I have not tried them.  But some people mentioned that they stay in a vacation rental house.

Lunch in the park

If the visitor center is open, there is a small cafe inside.  However, it was closed this time.  Other than the cafe, there is no place to get food in the park in this season.   We usually prepare lunch when we visit the park this season.   With some camping equipment, we can cook "warm food" and it would be better in a cold weather.

It is important that we need well prepared when we visit there this time of the season.  It is not like summer time.  I just want to remind this!

Lassen Volcanic National Park ~ 2014 Spring Much less snow this year

There is still much snow, but much less than regular years

As I mentioned, we went to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  It was nice weather this weekend and we enjoyed on a snow field.

Much Less snow than regular years

Due to much less snow this winter, snow in the park was much less than regular years.   I felt like it was May.   In a regular year, we made a nice size of a snow cave.  However, this year, snow over there could be only 1~2m (3~6 feet) that was not enough to make a snow cave.   So that we tried to make an igloo instead.

Igloo

We put snow blocks too high and we could not close ceiling.  But kids liked it very much.  After that they dug a tunnel to reach inside of it.  

Entrance of the tunnel

Kids also enjoyed snow threading on a sloop. 

There was still much snow, but I felt like it was May

The weather was warm and we did not need a jackets.  We did not feel cold at all.  Actually we were sweating when we dug snow, climbing up for snow threading.

  CA-89, snow removing has not been started

Last year, snow removing was started when we visited there in the last weekend in March.  This year was a week earlier, however, it has not been started yet.   Actually, the visitor center was closed till the end of March.   I think it is due to the budget cutting by the government.

Around the visitor center, there is usually snow walls around the building.  However, this year, there was no snow walls around there.

The Visitor Center

Usually, we could not see the building from this location due to more snow!

Anyway, we enjoyed this weekend with our friends and had a really nice time over there.
Even if there was not much snow this year, it was still nice to play with snow.  Kids like this very much.   If you have a chance, I recommend to visit there in this time of the year.

Plan to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park this weekend!

Outdoor activity on a snow field!

One year anniversary of this blog!

It's been for almost 1 year!  Last year, I posted a report for our Lassen trip as the first article.  It is not really easy to write something in English, but I am trying to post more.

Annual Event!
As an annual event, our family visit Lassen Volcanic National Park in spring break.  Almost all Saturdays except summer vacation time, we sent our kids to a Japanese school.  Therefore, it is not easy to go overnight trip. 

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen Volcanic National Park is located northern California.  In summer season, many people visit the park to see different type of Volcano in the park.  People can do hiking, camping and etc.  It is probably busy in high season.  However, there is much snow in winter time and not many people visit this park.   So that even we stay a motel in one of  towns near by, it is very easy to get it.

In winter time, a CA-89 that across the park from north to south is closed.  So that, most of people are probably stay near entrance and playing with snow.   In winter time, it is really cold and it might be heard to stay out side for most of people.   The temperature could be below 20F, without moving around, it might be too cold.  However, in early spring around March, it is getting warm and people can stay out side and enjoy playing with snow.   I guess March could be a good season to visit the park.

Activity could be making (digging) a snow cave and  building igloo are really fun.  Kids love to do them!  You probably need to bring snow-saw and snow shovel.  Also, snow threading is also fun.  If you are interested in back country skiing, Lassen is a great area for back country skiing.   Probably snow-shoeing is also fun.  Since my kids is not old enough to do back country skiing.  We typically do making snow cave / igloo and snow threading.  
Then we do picnic on snow and cook some warm food.  I guess if the kids are getting older, we may be able to try to do coming on snow some day.

Lassen this winter

This winter, we did not get much rain / snow till a month ago.   As you probably know, most of ski resorts only have some snow with snow machines.  The mountain was brown / black even in January and February.   We planed to be there a few times this winter, but due to lack of snow, we gave up.
After mid February, we got a few storm and finally we got some snow over there.
This weekend could be good!  There will be no snow on the road and suppose to be good weather this weekend.
 
Skiing is fun, but a ski resort is typically crowded and noisy.  However, Lassen is very nice and quiet.  Just playing with snow is completely different experience for kids as well.  Also the cost is much less than skiing in a ski resort as well.

I really recommend to try Lassen Volcanic National Park some time in spring.

From San Francisco, it is about 4~5 hours driving.  It is not so far.   I would look for seeing you some day!