CA-36 East: Red Bluff to Lassen Volcanic National Park | Filmed before the Park Fire in 2023

[@InterstateKyle]

This video was filmed in July of 2023, exactly one year prior to the Park Fire effecting this road and all the communities along it, including Paynes Creek. I am absolutely shocked and horrified just how fast and destructive this fire has been for this area of California. Just three years prior, the Dixie Fire passed through the area where the video ended and destroyed 2/3 of Lassen Volcanic National Park. The western 1/3 of this park is now in sight of this fire, and I hope this beautiful park is spared from this fire. My heart goes out to all the people directly effected by this fire, and those who's lives have been changed forever because of it. It is my hope that this video can bring back good memories for those who lived in this area and help them see what life was like prior to the fire passing through. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those who have been effected by the Park Fire here in 2024.

[@Sangreaalstube]

You've got to do 36W next! It's my favorite drive from Red Bluff to Fortuna.

[@teslatim78]

I do this drive all the time. So pretty❤

[@SandraBrooks-m5q]

Thank you Kyle. Your videos are a blessing. Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2025. 🎄😊 🍾

[@dinamonaghan7524]

I have always wanted to make this trip. Thank you for letting me.

[@dwainsellers6453]

Your narrative said that Red bluff was at the Northern end of the Great Central valley however a little community North of Redding called mountain gate is where the Great Central valley begins.

[@kennethkugelman2977]

I like to think of the boundary between the Sierras and the Cascades where the granite gives way to the volcanic. Driving up the Feather River Canyon CA 70 it's extremely evident.

[@kennethkugelman2977]

99 used to be signed all the way to I-5 concurrently with 36, but a few years ago, for some reason I know not, they changed it to 36 only.

[@briane173]

Feather River Valley from Lake Almanor down the the western foothills, east to Susanville, is recognized as the _geologic_ boundary of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges, and CA-36 traverses a good length of that boundary. Feather River Valley is where it's most noticeable -- Sierra granite to the south, Cascades dacite, rhyolite, and basalt to the north. There was a time about 80 million years ago when the Farallon Plate began subducting beneath the west coast when the Sierra Nevada _looked_ like the Cascades -- a long network of composite cone volcanoes and volcanic fields of basalt much like what you see along the length of the Cascades today. Once the Farallon Plate completely subducted beneath the west coast the magmatism it fueled stopped, and gave the Sierra Batholith 15-20 million years to cool and form into its present state -- granite and granodiorite -- slowly brought to the surface through Basin & Range extension, and erosion of the top layers of volcanic rock produced by the Cascades-like chain of stratovolcanoes that ran the length of the Sierra Nevada Range.

[@grizzfan08]

Cal Fire's the best in the business, they'll get a handle on that beast before it enters the national forest. Now we know why the fire took off the way it did: all of that chaparral in the foothill region before making it to the 4,000 ft level. So glad the Dixie Fire stopped where it did, and it just goes to show how much work still needs to be done in that area too.

[@dwood78part23]

Hope you enjoyed this trip with your grandpa. As you're on CA route 36, I hope we get to see Fredonyer Pass which is the approximate boundary between the Seirra Nevada & the Cascades in a future video. & I'm with you on CA route 99's northern end. When I 1st seen it on Google Maps, I was like "there, why there?" Then again PCH's (CA route 1) northern end is also disappointing as well.

[@lawman592]

I believe, until recently, CA Route 36 and CA Route 99 were co-signed on the one-mile stretch from I-5 to the junction east of Red Bluff. Caltrans apparently thought motorists would be confused by the co-signing so they terminated CA Route 99 at the junction even though most of the traffic to and from the interchange with I-5 follows 99.

[@mattwiser8406]

Nice video, Kyle. Hopefully, they can stop the fire before it gets to Lassen Park. When I was in Sequoia NP back in June, the scars from the KCF Complex Fire were quite visible along Generals Highway as you came into the park from the south (CA 198)...

[@Writer538]

You referred to "volcanoes in the southern Cascades." Your trip into the Lassen area includes that one volcano and then there are volcanic areas in and around Lava Beds Monument. But what we normally think of as volcanoes are most in Oregon and Washington.

[@dontgetlost4078]

Lava beds monument is part of the Medicine Lake volcano, also part of the Cascade Range, with a similar style to Oregon's Newberry volcano (basaltic-to-rhyolitic shield volcanoes with summit a summit caldera).

[@fj-revisited]

So sad about the fires. But this video evoked some fond memories for me from a time in my 20s living with my mother in Redding. We had some wonderful days driving hwy 44 towards Shingletown and Lassen to cool down during the scorching Redding summers. We even hiked to the summit of Lassen once. Unforgettable experience. Wish I could turn back time to those mother-daughter days because she is no longer with us. Thank you for the video. ❤

[@TravellingTrav1025]

Hope they can save Lassen 🙏 love that park 🌲

[@teddytiger5217]

I've got family in Red Bluff!

[@jimholder6656]

Until I-5 was completed in the Central Valley, "Hwy. 99" was then known as "U.S. Hwy. 99" connecting Bakersfield, Tulare, Fresno, Merced, etc.

[@travist.7279]

I always liked the drive on Hwy 36 better than Hwy 44. Hwy 44 seems a lot straighter than 36, with far fewer elevation changes. But, that could just be my memory getting a little rusty.

[@mizzDrace18]

I pray it doesn’t hit red bluff!! I live off of Antelope exit!!!

[@adamc1966]

Already a collector's item since a lot of this east of Red Bluff has burned 😢