Some daybreak rays of sunlight managed to find its way over the range and filter its way down and under the giant conifer limbs overhead. We somewhat reluctantly threw back the top layer of our bedding and reached across the domed tent space to retrieve some suitably cozy clothing in which to eat a simple breakfast this bright and cool July morning. We threw ourselves into repacking the equipment and pulling up the stakes and stowed it all in The Q, now ready for more adventure.
Patrick Point was a second (or way is a fourth?) choice destination, but a pleasant surprise. My next chosen destination was to be just a stop along the way, but one stop I'd been eager to make for awhile. My plotted course brought us by another place of vivid and magical memories from my youth in 1963.
Burney Falls, tucked up toward the little known northeast corner of California, holds a very special place in my heart and memories. Dad worked for Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), a large utility company, which owned a camp at the edge of MacArthur-Burney Falls State Park, that was available to PG&E employees. In 1963, Dad had made reservations for the family to have a vacation at the camp, but mom had just had an emergency appendectomy and new baby Sheri, it was decided, would be left in the care of friends back home. I do not remember traveling in the car to this place, but I do recall the car entering the camp where a long barracks building with individual family cabins sat high up on stilts next to the lake. We stopped to check in with the caretaker, and 6-year old me and 4-year old sister Wendy got out of the car and were immediately threatened and accosted by a flock ornery geese with sharp pecking beaks on a serpentine neck that rose to the level of my vulnerable throat. Yikes! Help! They're after us!! We screamed and ran back to the car. The grownups did not seem to take this as seriously as I believed they should have. Fortunately the patrolling gestapo geese did not follow our car as we parked at the very far end of the building and climbed the steps up to the elevated cabin. Mom let us have some Craigmont Soda (Safeway store brand - a better bargain than a name brand), from dazzling colored aluminium cans, a beautiful deep purple can that poured forth grape soda, as I recall. This was a wonder and a treat.
Between our cabin and the hillside behind it was a swing set and a slide. Wendy and I were encouraged to go and play while the parents worked inside. We were pretty content to swing and slide and do a bit of close-by gawking at our vacation surroundings when a big kid, an authoritative girl came over to make our acquaintance. She soon began to spin an ominous tale. We were warned that big bears, ferocious bears, will come out of those woods right there as she point directly behind the swing set on which we were formerly enjoying our play time. "And you know what?", she continued, "those bears come out of the woods 'cause they're hungry!" Recovering from the recent trauma of geese was going OK up until that point when we met this 'big girl'. Geese could hurt you, but being ripped to tatters by hungry bears lurking right behind that tree was an even more serious danger. Yikes! Help! The bears are coming!! Help! We're about to be eaten by the bears!
We ran across the play yard and bounded up the steps for safety inside the cabin with our parents. I reached for the door, but it had been locked. Locked as parents of young kids are at times want to do. Locked at this critical time when me and my sister's very life hung in the balance. We screamed for a long time on the stoop, and once again it seemed that the grownups were not taking this as seriously as they should. Finally, the door was allowed to be opened as we rushed in to explain our escape from great danger. I like to think that I sidled up to the little kitchen counter and threw back another purple can of Craigmont soda to calm my nerves.
Afterwards, the geese continued to threaten me and my sister, but the bears never did materialize. New wonders and fantastic sights of the natural world were appearing before me at every hour. There was a crystal clear blue pool where Burney Creek entered the lake next to our cabin. I could peer into the azure depths and see large trout swimming about. I tried to catch fish that vacation, but only managed to get my line hopelessly tangled. I saw a ribbon snake, and I was very much a 6-year old expert on reptiles, especially snakes for which I was thrilled to encounter. I learned of horsetail plants growing along the creek bank and that these plants were found in fossils going back 240 million years! Along the trail from PG&E's camp to Burney Falls were out crops of a chalky white earth, only it was not chalk (CaCO3) but rather diatomaceous earth. A deposit made of billions upon billions of tiny silica tests from single-celled creatures that had drifted and collect on an ancient seafloor. Along the shore of the lake were vesicle-riddled pumice stones, which another camper and I discovered we could make these pieces of pumice rock actually float on the water, at least for a few moments. Wow! Floating rocks! There was so much wonder and thrilling knowledge for a young scientist at every turn. Perhaps my calling as a geologist began here at Burney Falls in 1963. I do not doubt that this place is a pivot point in my life, awakening dreams and interests that resonate in me to this day.
I was excited to pay our $8 entry fee for a day pass to enter the state park. It was warm as we stepped out of The Q and Sue paused to change into some hiking shoes. I could hear the falls from the parking lot. I'd initially hoped to walk the 1.5 mile round trip trail from the falls to the PG&E camp and back; but inside I also feared, as is inevitably the case, I would find the strong magic of my early memories to be no match for what my mature eyes would see, thereby destroying the residue of all of that early wonder left inside my mind. Sue encouraged me to make the walk back along the creek if I wanted too. I made it maybe a hundred yards down stream, and whether I was convince that we could not afford to lose the travel time needed to get a campsite at tonight's endpoint, or maybe I was convicted that I could not afford to lose the strong magic of my memories; either way, I turned around and said, "I've seen the falls. I'm done here. Let's go back." I do not regret leaving some wonderful things from the past right there, in the past, where they will live and flourish for lack of a harsh ground reality.
We made it back to the parking lot unmolested by either ornery geese or hungry bears, I am pleased to report.
Patrick Point was a second (or way is a fourth?) choice destination, but a pleasant surprise. My next chosen destination was to be just a stop along the way, but one stop I'd been eager to make for awhile. My plotted course brought us by another place of vivid and magical memories from my youth in 1963.
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| Bifurcated Burney Falls A Magical Place from my Early Memories |
Burney Falls, tucked up toward the little known northeast corner of California, holds a very special place in my heart and memories. Dad worked for Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), a large utility company, which owned a camp at the edge of MacArthur-Burney Falls State Park, that was available to PG&E employees. In 1963, Dad had made reservations for the family to have a vacation at the camp, but mom had just had an emergency appendectomy and new baby Sheri, it was decided, would be left in the care of friends back home. I do not remember traveling in the car to this place, but I do recall the car entering the camp where a long barracks building with individual family cabins sat high up on stilts next to the lake. We stopped to check in with the caretaker, and 6-year old me and 4-year old sister Wendy got out of the car and were immediately threatened and accosted by a flock ornery geese with sharp pecking beaks on a serpentine neck that rose to the level of my vulnerable throat. Yikes! Help! They're after us!! We screamed and ran back to the car. The grownups did not seem to take this as seriously as I believed they should have. Fortunately the patrolling gestapo geese did not follow our car as we parked at the very far end of the building and climbed the steps up to the elevated cabin. Mom let us have some Craigmont Soda (Safeway store brand - a better bargain than a name brand), from dazzling colored aluminium cans, a beautiful deep purple can that poured forth grape soda, as I recall. This was a wonder and a treat.
Between our cabin and the hillside behind it was a swing set and a slide. Wendy and I were encouraged to go and play while the parents worked inside. We were pretty content to swing and slide and do a bit of close-by gawking at our vacation surroundings when a big kid, an authoritative girl came over to make our acquaintance. She soon began to spin an ominous tale. We were warned that big bears, ferocious bears, will come out of those woods right there as she point directly behind the swing set on which we were formerly enjoying our play time. "And you know what?", she continued, "those bears come out of the woods 'cause they're hungry!" Recovering from the recent trauma of geese was going OK up until that point when we met this 'big girl'. Geese could hurt you, but being ripped to tatters by hungry bears lurking right behind that tree was an even more serious danger. Yikes! Help! The bears are coming!! Help! We're about to be eaten by the bears!
We ran across the play yard and bounded up the steps for safety inside the cabin with our parents. I reached for the door, but it had been locked. Locked as parents of young kids are at times want to do. Locked at this critical time when me and my sister's very life hung in the balance. We screamed for a long time on the stoop, and once again it seemed that the grownups were not taking this as seriously as they should. Finally, the door was allowed to be opened as we rushed in to explain our escape from great danger. I like to think that I sidled up to the little kitchen counter and threw back another purple can of Craigmont soda to calm my nerves.
Afterwards, the geese continued to threaten me and my sister, but the bears never did materialize. New wonders and fantastic sights of the natural world were appearing before me at every hour. There was a crystal clear blue pool where Burney Creek entered the lake next to our cabin. I could peer into the azure depths and see large trout swimming about. I tried to catch fish that vacation, but only managed to get my line hopelessly tangled. I saw a ribbon snake, and I was very much a 6-year old expert on reptiles, especially snakes for which I was thrilled to encounter. I learned of horsetail plants growing along the creek bank and that these plants were found in fossils going back 240 million years! Along the trail from PG&E's camp to Burney Falls were out crops of a chalky white earth, only it was not chalk (CaCO3) but rather diatomaceous earth. A deposit made of billions upon billions of tiny silica tests from single-celled creatures that had drifted and collect on an ancient seafloor. Along the shore of the lake were vesicle-riddled pumice stones, which another camper and I discovered we could make these pieces of pumice rock actually float on the water, at least for a few moments. Wow! Floating rocks! There was so much wonder and thrilling knowledge for a young scientist at every turn. Perhaps my calling as a geologist began here at Burney Falls in 1963. I do not doubt that this place is a pivot point in my life, awakening dreams and interests that resonate in me to this day.
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| Back to a place of pivotal memories Burney Falls |
I was excited to pay our $8 entry fee for a day pass to enter the state park. It was warm as we stepped out of The Q and Sue paused to change into some hiking shoes. I could hear the falls from the parking lot. I'd initially hoped to walk the 1.5 mile round trip trail from the falls to the PG&E camp and back; but inside I also feared, as is inevitably the case, I would find the strong magic of my early memories to be no match for what my mature eyes would see, thereby destroying the residue of all of that early wonder left inside my mind. Sue encouraged me to make the walk back along the creek if I wanted too. I made it maybe a hundred yards down stream, and whether I was convince that we could not afford to lose the travel time needed to get a campsite at tonight's endpoint, or maybe I was convicted that I could not afford to lose the strong magic of my memories; either way, I turned around and said, "I've seen the falls. I'm done here. Let's go back." I do not regret leaving some wonderful things from the past right there, in the past, where they will live and flourish for lack of a harsh ground reality.
We made it back to the parking lot unmolested by either ornery geese or hungry bears, I am pleased to report.
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| Burney Falls Not California's highest waterfall - but in some ways its most beautiful |
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| Water drops 129' into a beautiful blue and green basin pool |
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| Mist rises for the base of Burney Falls on a warm July afternoon |
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| Many water rivulets pour out of porous volcanic rock |
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