Putting the "Why?" in Yreka

Oregon Cascades Travelog #23
Yreka, CA - Sun, 6 Jul 2025, 9am

Sometimes you pick a hotel for the night and it turns out to be a bad one. That's what happened to us last night— or, rather, about a week ago when we picked the Comfort Inn in Yreka, California, that we checked into last night.

"Why Yreka?" you might ask. (That's an alliteration, BTW, as Yreka is pronounced WHY-reek-ah.) And also, "Where's Yreka?" 😅

 

We drove to Yreka yesterday after finishing up an amazing hike at Misery Ridge in Smith Rock State Park in Oregon. Part of the idea for stopping at this small town in far northern California was it's a halfway home stop to finish up our July 4th trip to Bend, Oregon. It's kind of like our Friday Night Halfway strategy for getting a jump start on trips, but in reverse. The other part of the idea was that Yreka wouldn't just be a stopover point halfway but could be a good jumping-off point for a hike in, say, the Shasta-Trinity mountains today.

A pall was cast over the whole plan when we checked in to the hotel, a Comfort Inn, last night and found it below our expectations. One little thing that we spotted as we parked is that the pool area doesn't include a hot tub. It would been nice to relax our sore muscles after the Misery Ridge hike. Oh, and speaking of "as we parked"... the hotel shares a parking lot with a Taco Bell. That kind of became a signifier for everything else. 🤣

The main unwelcome surprise at the hotel was that it has no elevator. That was unexpected because it's a hotel with interior corridors. It's normal for motor-lodge style hotels with rooms that open from exterior breezeways not to have elevators. However this Comfort Inn has interior corridors. I haven't seen an interior-corridor hotel that lacks elevators since... since I was a kid. And it was an old hotel built in the 1930s. This hotel was built in the 21st century. Plus, Comfort Inn, as a brand, is positioned in the market a level where things like "Has an elevator" are table stakes. Here I was worried about whether Days Inn would measure up on this trip, and it's the higher positioned Comfort Inn that falls short. The lack of an elevator would be only a minor annoyance other trips except Hawk was struggling with mobility yesterday evening. And the hotel had no ground floor rooms left available. (Probably everyone who checked in before us demanded them upon learning there's no elevator.)

Then there's the view from our window....



I'm not sure if this is better or worse than a view of the Taco Bell. 😅 When I open the window I can still hear them taking orders at the drive-thru. 🤣

Other things came up short with the Comfort Inn and Yreka, too, but I don't want to dwell further on them. One thing that went right was the bed was comfortable— better than we've slept in the past several days. And, especially after a good sleep, today's a new day.

Today's a new day, but we're tired. I swatted my snooze button until 8 this morning. While Hawk was still sleeping in I began researching places we could hike today and I... I just can't. I don't feel like hiking today.

I broke the bad news to Hawk a few minutes ago when she got up. She didn't take it badly at all. She's worn out, too, and is game just to go home.

If we pack and leave now we could be home just after 3pm... assuming we keep time spent on stops for lunch and gas to a minimum and don't hit traffic. But it's Sunday on a holiday weekend so we probably will hit traffic. And that's another reason to start the drive home early. Traffic slowdowns headed back into the SF Bay Area will only get worse late in the afternoon and into the evening.

Back Home 1,762 Miles Later

Oregon Cascades Travelog #24
Back home - Sun, 6 Jul 2025, 6pm

We're back home from our trip to the Oregon Cascades and high desert. We got back home a bit after 5pm today, was a bit over 6 days after we left home Monday afternoon. The trip today was all driving, no adventuring, as we decided this morning we just wanted to get home. Today's drive was 334 miles, bringing the total distance for the trip to 1,762 miles. That's a lot to cover in 6 days— nearly 300 miles per day— especially with all the hiking we did in addition to the driving.

We're already unpacked from the trip. We make a point nowadays of unloading everything from the car and putting it away as soon as we get home. Years ago we'd sometimes play the "Ugh, we're so tired" card and leave things in the car, intending to unpack the next day. The thing is, there's usually no more convenient time to do it. The next day after a trip is usually a work day, which means there are plenty more reasons to put off unpacking. I think the record was stuff got left in the car for a week one time. 🤣

Speaking of tomorrow being a work day, it is. For me, at least. That was a big part of why I favored coming straight home today. At 6pm now it's not exactly "early", but I've got things unpacked, I'm stretching out to relax, and I can take it easy the rest of this evening. All this will make it somewhat easier to start a full work week tomorrow morning.
Edit to add: One thing that's not done from this trip is the blogging. I figure I've got about 10 blogs stuck in the backlog. We'll see if I can clear them out this week.

Hiking Paulina Falls

Oregon Cascades Travelog #3
La Pine, OR - Tue, 1 Jul 2025, 4:30pm

Tuesday afternoon on our trip I finished work early— yes, Tuesday was a work day for me— and we headed out for an afternoon hike. We picked Paulina Falls in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. It was basically on our way from Klamath Falls to Bend for the night.



Paulina Falls is a short hike from the trailhead. And by short I mean the upper viewpoint shown in the pic above is about 150 meters from the parking lot. It's a walk in the park. We had the place virtually to ourselves, though, because a) today's a weekday and b) the weather is turning crummy. It's been kind of overcast all day, but on our drive up to the higher elevations here (we're at about 6,300' vs. down in the valley at 4,200') it's started to sprinkle rain. The rain's not enough to bother us. We simply pulled on our light rain jackets for the hike.

Speaking of hike, yes, there is more than just the 150 meter stroll to the upper viewpoint. There's also the lower viewpoint.



The lower viewpoint is an easy walk down a switchback path along the side of the canyon. It's a bit a huff-and-puff trek back up, though, especially for us, not acclimated to the altitude of over a mile.

These falls are fed by water from Paulina Lake. Unlike some double falls we've seen where the two falls are actually different creek that happen to meet as they fall over the same mountain, this is actually one creek. It just splits around some rocks upstream and falls over this cliff in two places. You can read more about the geology of the area in my blog from our last visit here... six years ago.



Something I did this time that's a bit different from six years ago was venturing out on an unofficial middle viewpoint. You see, there are well designated spots for the upper and lower viewpoint. But IMO the best vantage for seeing the falls is from one of the switchbacks on the canyon trail down to the lower viewpoint. And it's not just at the switchback but maybe 30' around the canyon wall from it, over a brush pile designed to keep people out and then hopping and climbing along some precarious perches on the canyon wall. Oh, you daredevil, me.