2 Backpacks, 2 Bikes, a Van and a plan..: Lassen Volcanic National Park

National Parks are often full of surprises, and some lesser known parks house some of the most unexpected and sometimes stunning natural phenomenon. We’ve all heard about Yellowstone and Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and of course Rocky Mountain National Park. There are currently 58 designated National Parks in the National Park system, with a handful that grab most of the headlines and garner the largest number of visitors, but of late, we have been discovering the magic of some lesser known parks, including our recent visit to Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Just about 3 hours north (and slightly west) of Reno, on the eastern edge of northern California, Lassen was a natural choice for our first foray out of the Reno/Tahoe area during our days off. As we work just three days a week in the Galena Creek Visitor Center (Thurs, Fri & Sat), we generally have four days to work with when we take off. For this Lassen trip, we combined it with a trip to Chico, California, home of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, making a loop of it. The brewery tours (we did two different tours over a day and a half, as well as multiple trips to their on-site tap room) were fantastic and well worth the trip, but I’ll let Andre post about that later.

Back to Lassen Volcanic National Park...

View from Manzanita Lake, taken on a short morning hike

To paraphrase the national park brochure for this park, Lassen Peak is one of many active, dormant, extinct volcanoes found around the Pacific Ocean in what is referred to as the “ring of fire”. On this seismic zone, edges of the plates that form the Earth’s crust grind against each other, and one plate subducts, sinks down. This subduction creates molten rock, magma, at the plate margins. As the magma rises into the continental crust it becomes the feeding chambers of volcanoes.

The park lies at the southern end of the Cascade Range, which is a chain of active volcanoes that stretches north all the way to British Columbia. The last eruptions at Lassen Peak occurred sporadically over a three year period between 1914 and 1916, with the largest occurring on May 22, 1915, profoundly altering the surrounding area. Congress made the area a National Park in 1916 because of the eruption and active volcanic landscape. Despite the general inactivity at the site for almost 100 years, the park is very much alive - with evidence of volcanic activity shockingly accessible.

We entered through the Northwest section of the park, which boasts huge mountains created by lava flows, jagged craters, spectacular glaciated canyons, lakes and clear rushing streams. At higher elevations, snow can be found year-round. We camped overnight in the Manzanita Lake Camping area and experienced cold, for the first time in months.

In the morning we went for an early hike around Manzanita lake, putting on our winter hats and warm clothes to start with, but it warmed up nicely for the rest of the morning as we drove slowly south through the park, stopping for short hikes and views along the way, including a picnic lunch in the van at one of the trail heads.

The lake was teaming with life, in the water and in the air as well

Some snow covers the peaks year-round

View from the banks of Summit Lake

The real show-stopper for us, though, was the southern part of the park! We had read that the southern edge of Lassen plateau featured hydrothermal areas offering boiling springs, bubbling mud pots and steaming fumaroles. Seeing them in person was something else all together. From the overwhelming smell of sulphur, the odd colored bodies of water, the crusty earth, steam vents and boiling pools of mud, it was like a journey to the center of the earth (and a bit disconcerting being just steps away from breaking through the crust.) All of the signs emphasized staying on the boardwalk and frankly, no one in their right mind would have dared step off it. Here are some photos from "Bumpass Hell", the most amazing part of the park visit!