Sitting here in the deep silence, I hear an occasional bird call from high in the treetops.  I recognize the sound of grasshopper wings in a lazy long hop.  It’s so silent here that the whir of vehicle tires on campground asphalt is vaguely noted far, far away and the distant rumble of a jetliner high above floats to me.  Dave is down at the lake edge attempting to record the soft sound of tiny waves lapping against the shore.  Amazingly the sounds of tires and jets will be amplified many times over in his recording.  The breeze off the lake is soft but constant, so I keep my lawn chair in the full sun to balance out the chill.  This is Medicine Lake, east of Mt Shasta at 7,700 feet, a water filled caldera, the original source of the lava that flowed slowly through fault lines and ridge cracks to form the Lava Beds at the Northern California border, a shield volcano.   That whole area today is labeled “Volcanic Legacy”.  The last lava flow here was 950 years ago, and there were some 4.1 magnitude earthquakes here in 1988.  These relatively recent events qualify the lake as “high risk” for volcanic activity.  It’s so serene today, no fishermen on the lake, only the very random sound now and then of a human voice.  The campground is almost empty. At dawn, the lake was shrouded in a thick fog that slowly lifted bit by bit to reveal a changing landscape.  The silence then felt muffled.  Now the sunlight moves and sparkles over the water, but the silence remains.

Every year, third week in July, this campground becomes the site of a traditional Indian powwow.  I can just imagine the teeming activity of that week.

Making camp here yesterday, the dark clouds overhead suggested rain.  At one point, I heard tiny tapping sounds on van windows and roof.  When I looked out, I realized that it was sleet, not rain, that was landing on the van and then melting immediately.  September 21, Fall has arrived at the higher elevations.  We are finally past the experience of the flu and RSV shots.