WHERE: Drakesbad Guest Ranch, a 19th-century ranch in the shadow of Mount Lassen, Calif.

WHY GO THERE: To get away from it all, really. It's a summer place — and an adventure in time travel.

The lodge was electrified only in the 1990s, and its six guest rooms still feature kerosene lamps. (Bungalows, cabins, an annex and a duplex add up to 19 total units.) After a day of hiking, fishing or horseback riding amid the park's tall trees, hissing hydrothermal vents and scenic seasonal lakes, guests circle chairs around the outdoor fire ring under stars that hang low and bright. (Altitude: 6,200 feet.) No room keys. All meals family style. Soda and beer in buckets on the covered porch. Some nights, sitting in the spring-fed pool and peering through the steam across the meadow, you catch deer peering back.

Favorite hiking/riding trails to the Devils Kitchen, Boiling Springs Lake, Terminal Geyser and Flat Iron Ridge to Kings Creek Falls all begin at the lodge (and end in the hot springs-fed swimming pool).

The ranch has a variety of games and pastimes including pingpong, volleyball, badminton and horseshoes.

Favorite places for reading, quiet times or intimate conversations include the porch looking south to Mount Harkness and on glider seats with a view up the meadow to the north. As well as the deer, visits from a marmot family living in a burrow nearby are common sights at evening time.

Drakesbad welcomes guests through Oct. 13; rates start at $155 per adult per day, meals included.

GETTING THERE: Drakesbad Guest Ranch, End of Warner Valley Road, Chester, Calif. 96020, 530-529-1512, ext. 120, www.drakesbad.com. The ranch is in Mount Lassen National Park, about 200 miles northeast of San Francisco.