When you are walking down the street and see a pine cone lying on the ground you probably don't think too much about it. Sometimes you might kick it down the street, sometimes you might step on it just to hear that satisfying crunch, but you never really think how it got there or the damage it may have caused on its way to its resting place. Just so we all understand, a pine cone falling from a tree literally can kill a person. Luckily we didn't find this out firsthand, but we did have a nice run in with a pine cone this weekend while we were camping in Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northeastern California. 
On Friday night Claire and her parents packed up and drove north and Claire got to experience both her first National Park and her first time camping. As most of you know she is already an experienced hiker so being in the woods was no big deal, but she's never been up to 8000 feet nor has she ever spent a night in a tent with the ambient temperature hovering around 40 degrees. Add in having to wear a snow suit that is about 2 sizes too big and you'd think that a 7 month would be throwing the fit of her life.
But keep in mind we're talking about our Little Angel, our little lady Claire. Aside from your standard "I'm hungry" cry she was a bundle of joy and loved seeing the waterfalls, telling ghost stories around the campfire, watching mommy and daddy eating s'mores, and hiking to lakes, through boulder fields, and near steaming vents and boiling sulfur pools in and around an active but dormant volcano. 
Let's reflect upon that for a moment "active but dormant". Sounds scary because it is. The park, California's 4th National Park and the country's 17th, was formed in 1916 because of the national attention it drew when Mt. Lassen became the first volcano in the recorded history of the United States to blow its top. 
Somehow a man named "Loomis" happened to be in the right place at the right time and took a bunch of really cool photos of the mountain spewing hot ash into the air and he also happened to live to tell about it. His pictures made it quickly into all the newspapers and within a year the surrounding area was a National Park. Visitors flocked to the region and by 1924 an amazing 142 visitors entered the park that entire year. And with the park charging the steep (for the time) entrance fee of 10 cents the park was able to pull in a whopping $14.20 that year which they used to build a road. Well, there was some federal money involved but by the time 1925 rolled around there was a 33 mile scenic road winding through the beautiful terrain and nearly 2200 people were able to enjoy the park. To the best of my knowledge none of them were killed by pinecones and none of them died because of fiery ash raining from the sky which is why they say the volcano is "active but dormant". It currently does not kill innocent bystanders with its fury, but the many steam vents and bubbling pools are reminders that there is still ample fuel lying deep underground...
Anyway, back to our trip. After setting up our tent and cooking some food we headed out on a hike from our campsite to one of the many nearby lakes. There were many varied styles of pine trees and the scene was often so pretty it was surreal. We highly reccomend this park to all of our friends and family (and as an aside if you happen to be amongst the 62 or better crowd, for $10 you can buy a lifetime pass not only to Lassen but to all of America's picteresque parks).
Rather than going into excruicating detail I'll summarize the rest of our trip. We hiked and we ate. Yep, that was pretty much it. 3 days of hiking and eating. Oh and then there was the killer pinecone. There we were parked by the camp store trying to prepare for showers when out of nowhere, BANG, 
a pinecone smashed down with tremendous force and hit our brand new car's windshield so hard that small pieces of glass could be found inside the car and the cracks extended and covered nearly 50% of the 6 week old windshield. So how did this happen? Well, luckily for us the park ranger had a good explanation. Most of the pinecones you see on the ground are little and brittle, that because those are the only ones that fall off naturally. The dense, wet, heavy ones tend to stay on the tree... that is unless a squirrel happens to be looking for a meal. If you've ever tried to feed birds and keep squirrels away, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say squirrels are smart creatures... To get their juicy pinecone meal they'll gnaw at the heavy cones stems until they break loose and then scurry down the tree to enjoy their meal. Unfortunately some of those cones may end up taking a less than straight path to the ground. Have you ever noticed that the trailworkers and firefighters wear helmets when they're out and about in the forest. They do this because pinecones can kill. They have before and they will again. The next time you see one on the ground you may want to give it an extra hard kick as it may have cost some poor smucks like us $230 or worse.
On Friday night Claire and her parents packed up and drove north and Claire got to experience both her first National Park and her first time camping. As most of you know she is already an experienced hiker so being in the woods was no big deal, but she's never been up to 8000 feet nor has she ever spent a night in a tent with the ambient temperature hovering around 40 degrees. Add in having to wear a snow suit that is about 2 sizes too big and you'd think that a 7 month would be throwing the fit of her life.
But keep in mind we're talking about our Little Angel, our little lady Claire. Aside from your standard "I'm hungry" cry she was a bundle of joy and loved seeing the waterfalls, telling ghost stories around the campfire, watching mommy and daddy eating s'mores, and hiking to lakes, through boulder fields, and near steaming vents and boiling sulfur pools in and around an active but dormant volcano. Let's reflect upon that for a moment "active but dormant". Sounds scary because it is. The park, California's 4th National Park and the country's 17th, was formed in 1916 because of the national attention it drew when Mt. Lassen became the first volcano in the recorded history of the United States to blow its top. Somehow a man named "Loomis" happened to be in the right place at the right time and took a bunch of really cool photos of the mountain spewing hot ash into the air and he also happened to live to tell about it. His pictures made it quickly into all the newspapers and within a year the surrounding area was a National Park. Visitors flocked to the region and by 1924 an amazing 142 visitors entered the park that entire year. And with the park charging the steep (for the time) entrance fee of 10 cents the park was able to pull in a whopping $14.20 that year which they used to build a road. Well, there was some federal money involved but by the time 1925 rolled around there was a 33 mile scenic road winding through the beautiful terrain and nearly 2200 people were able to enjoy the park. To the best of my knowledge none of them were killed by pinecones and none of them died because of fiery ash raining from the sky which is why they say the volcano is "active but dormant". It currently does not kill innocent bystanders with its fury, but the many steam vents and bubbling pools are reminders that there is still ample fuel lying deep underground...Anyway, back to our trip. After setting up our tent and cooking some food we headed out on a hike from our campsite to one of the many nearby lakes. There were many varied styles of pine trees and the scene was often so pretty it was surreal. We highly reccomend this park to all of our friends and family (and as an aside if you happen to be amongst the 62 or better crowd, for $10 you can buy a lifetime pass not only to Lassen but to all of America's picteresque parks).
Rather than going into excruicating detail I'll summarize the rest of our trip. We hiked and we ate. Yep, that was pretty much it. 3 days of hiking and eating. Oh and then there was the killer pinecone. There we were parked by the camp store trying to prepare for showers when out of nowhere, BANG, a pinecone smashed down with tremendous force and hit our brand new car's windshield so hard that small pieces of glass could be found inside the car and the cracks extended and covered nearly 50% of the 6 week old windshield. So how did this happen? Well, luckily for us the park ranger had a good explanation. Most of the pinecones you see on the ground are little and brittle, that because those are the only ones that fall off naturally. The dense, wet, heavy ones tend to stay on the tree... that is unless a squirrel happens to be looking for a meal. If you've ever tried to feed birds and keep squirrels away, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say squirrels are smart creatures... To get their juicy pinecone meal they'll gnaw at the heavy cones stems until they break loose and then scurry down the tree to enjoy their meal. Unfortunately some of those cones may end up taking a less than straight path to the ground. Have you ever noticed that the trailworkers and firefighters wear helmets when they're out and about in the forest. They do this because pinecones can kill. They have before and they will again. The next time you see one on the ground you may want to give it an extra hard kick as it may have cost some poor smucks like us $230 or worse.
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