Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen Volcanic National Park was another two-nighter, and another park on the smaller side. Originally, I didn't even plan on visiting because I knew we'd be too early in the season to get to Bumpass Hell due to the elevation. I ended up adding it back after v4 of the Road Trip, as we had the time and I figured it might be close in terms of season. The park protects the largest plug dome volcano in the world, Lassen Peak (10,457'), and is one of the few places in the world where you can see all four types of volcanoes! In fact, the remnants of a stratovolcano -- a very large volcano built up over time -- Mount Tehama, can be seen as a ring of peaks around the park. It was 1,000' taller than Lassen Peak and either collapsed in on itself or was eroded away. The stark beauty of the volcanic wasteland is stunning -- vast and alien.

We arrived at the Manzanita Lake campground in the afternoon and were surprised that it was almost cold! Manzanita Lake is at one of the lowest elevations in the park -- around 5,900'. The highway traversing the park was open though, so that was good. Our campsite was an extra large one but we were surrounded by RVs anyway. We noticed a lot of the visitors to this park were much older than we were, which we found unusual.

We decided to drive down to the Visitor Center the next morning, 30 miles down the scenic highway on the opposite side of the park, and work our way back. We stopped by a small roadside geothermal area featuring a boiling mudpot that frankly, looked extremely inviting in the crisp morning air. The smell of sulfur made me hungry too.

The trail to Bumpass Hell was closed due to snow but we checked with the Ranger and it could be accessed via a slightly longer hike, via Cold Boiling Lake. Excellent!

It was a pretty fun hike. Cold Boiling Lake is a dying geothermal area that still has gases bubbling up inside, which gives it the appearance of being boiling. It's also more of a pond...

Bumpass Hell was cool. The area is named after the man who first explored this region -- Kendall Bumpass. One day he fell into one of the geothermal features and burned his leg -- and he forever referred to the area as a Hell, and the name stuck. It looked very similar to Yellowstone, albeit on a much smaller scale and with none of the crowds. We were all alone up there, with the first other hikers coming in as we were leaving. We also saw a baby deer! It was very tiny and very adorable.

After Bumpass Hell we stopped at the King's Creek trailhead and hiked down to the King's Creek Falls.

More beautiful waterfalls... these were unique in that the rocks they were flowing over were perfectly geometric, indicating their volcanic origin. The hike back ran up hundreds of steps along beautiful cascades. I'm getting tired of describing all these beautiful waterfalls! What a problem to have.

We stopped by Summit Lake as our last stop for the day and Vitali tried fishing again. None of the lakes in the park have been stocked since the 70s, but there are self-sustaining populations here, although Vitali couldn't find them.

The next morning we stopped by the Lake near our campground, Manzanita, to take a look before we left. You could fish here but it was catch and release only, which makes no sense to me. Species to be protected aside -- You're allowed to injure the fish which decreases it's chances of survival but not allowed to keep it?

We continued back south down the scenic drive to where we left off the day before -- and walked the short Devastated Area Trail, which was an interpretive trail that talked about the geology of the last eruption of Lassen Peak, in 1915.

We stopped at a few more waypoints on the way back out and then left the park via the northern entrance and made way for Redwood National and State Parks. I wish we did have some more time at this park -- there were a few areas only accessible from outside the park, and a lot of hiking trails that I would have liked to done. Lassen Peak was beckoning...

On the way to the coast we passed through Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, where we got a stamp for our passport and walked a short ways to Crystal Creek Falls, another beautiful waterfall.