California: Fire and Snow at Lassen

 

Even in late July, the snow of the 2022-23 winter had not melted. 
This is Lake Helen, one of several glacier-formed lakes at Lassen.

In July 2023, Jane and I finally made it to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  It was on our itinerary for a summer 2022 road trip from Seattle to San Diego, but we both came down with covid enroute and had to skip Lassen on that trip. 

For 2023, we went from destination to destination on our way north from San Diego to Lassen, which is near the northeast corner of California. On the way home, we made other stops. We're trying to see as much of California as we can and we figure we've been in more than half of the state's 58 counties.

Our two-night stops on the way north were Los Angeles, Morro Bay and Calistoga. On the way home we did two-night stops at Plymouth (near Sacramento), Carmel and Paso Robles. The trip is detailed in another post.

For our three nights at Lassen, we stayed at Highland Ranch Resort, one of the few hotels near Lassen.  We had an afternoon and then two full days to explore the park. We knew in advance that the 2021 Dixie Fire had reached Lassen, but we were unprepared for endless vistas of charred trees. The fire started 40 miles from the park, burned from July 13 to October 26 and eventually destroyed 963,309 acres. It was the largest fire in California history. 

When we arrived at the park in July 2023, the heavy snows of the previous winter had not yet disappeared (one roadside sign said we were at 8,711 feet} and the trail to Bumpass Hell, the park's signature geothermal field, had not opened for the season.  This is in late July! We did see another geothermal feature, boiling and smelly mud at the Sulphur Works, which is right on the park's main road. Other trails were open and we made the easy 1.4-mile walk to Cold Boiling Lake, where subterranean gasses create bubbles in what is really a pond.  We also did the more strenuous King Creek Falls loop. A lot of its nearly 500 feet of elevation change is climbed all at one time on the return trail with steep and narrow stairs carved along a cliff above the creek's falls and cascades. The park called this 2.3-mile trail "moderate." A hike we didn't attempt was Lassen Peak, a 4.8-mile trek that ascends almost 2,000 feet. The park describes it as exposed, loose rock switchbacks and "strenuous." 

One of the most pleasant things about Lassen was the lack of crowds. This is a relatively unknown national park and not near any Interstate highways.  Although the burned areas were huge, a good bit of the park survived untouched with many towering lodgepole pines. It has examples of four kinds of volcanos: shield volcano (Prospect Peak), plug dome volcano (Lassen Peak), cinder cone volcano (Cinder Cone), and composite volcano (Brokeoff Mountain).  There are monitors around the park to detect ground movement that might mean another eruption is imminent. The last big one was in 1915 when Lassen Peak exploded, sending volcanic ash as far away as 200 miles. 

Here are some photos:

Lassen Volcanic National Park is
in northeastern California.

At 10,457 feet, Lassen Peak is visible from many points in the park. It is the
most southern active volcano in the Cascades Range.

Crescent Crater, seen here from the Devastated Area
Interpretive Trail, is 8,645 feet above sea level. The
trail explains what happened during Lassen Peak's
1915 eruption, which rained as much as 100 feet
of rocks onto a forest and sent ash as far away
as 200 miles.

Most trails at Lassen are less than four
miles roundtrip. The longest is the Brokeoff
Mountain trail, which is 7.4 miles with
a 2,500-foot elevation change.

This is part of the Kings Creek Falls trail. It traverses
a large burned area as well as areas that had not been 
burned. The steepest part of the trail is on the return
loop which has stairs cut into a cliff as it
relentlessly climbs beside roaring cascades.
Beautiful but strenuous. Not moderate, despite
the stairs (barely visible here).

Another section of the Kings Creek Falls trail.

Kings Creek cascades.

Cold Boiling Lake is really a bubbling pond.

The bubbles at Cold Boiling Lake.

The trail to Bumpass Hell geothermal field was still closed by snow in late July,
so the Sulphur Works was the only place we saw any geothermal activity. 
Enlarge this to read more easily.

The Sulphur Works  pool of bubbling and sulphurous
mud is right on the park's main road.

Steam escapes from holes just across the road from the bubbling mud.

Supposedly, a man named Bumpass gave Bumpass Hell
its name when he was badly burned after breaking through
the area's crust.

The main road at Lassen wends its way around mountains and along valleys,
but it does not get you out of the western half of the park. The eastern half,
which has no internal road connection to the western half, gets very few
visitors. The main attractions are Juniper Lake, Cinder Cone and the
Painted Dunes.  East of the park's eastern boundary is the Caribou
Wilderness section of Lassen National Forest. 

Summit Lake is one of several glacier-created lakes in the park.

Lake Helen, which has parking and a picnic 
area, is probably the most photographed 
lake at Lassen.

Algae accounts for Emerald Lake's distinctive color.

Besides being unsightly, the burned
areas of the park can be dangerous.

Burned trees from the 2021 Dixie Fire stand along the trail to Cold Boiling Lake.

The Kings Creek Falls trail crosses little
streams of snow melt among the burned trees.

These rocks rained down into what is now called the Devastated Area during the 1915
eruption of Lassen Peak. Rocks such as these, 100 feet deep, wiped out acres of 
pine trees, but eventually a new forest appeared atop the rocks. Then the
area was further devastated in 2021 by the Dixie Fire. These pine
cones could be the start of yet another new forest here.

....

A view of Lassen Peak from the Bumpass Hell trailhead. The large rock
in the foreground was possibly ejected from Lassen Peak during 
its 1915 eruption.