Lassen Volcanic National Park

For Christmas last year, I bought Matt and myself a three-night stay at the newly built Manzanita Lake camping cabins up in Lassen National Park. The cabins are "rustic", so no electricity, but they are heated and have some basic furniture.  We were looking forward to a nice long weekend of hiking, sightseeing, and marshmallow-roasting.

We drove up I-5 on Friday, stopping in Chico for lunch, and then continuing up to the park. It was uncharacteristically rainy and overcast in the Bay Area that day, and so we had a pleasant but somewhat grey drive up into the woods. We drove though Lassen National Forest, which in the rain reminded me of Oregon with its fern-lined creeks and lush, quiet forests.

We arrived in Lassen National Park on the opposite side from where our cabin was, so we decided to drive the single park road its entire length to get to our site. Quickly, the road climbed up into the clouds, where we realized that it was actually snowing quite seriously. Lassen's park road climbs to 8,512 ft, making it the highest in the Cascade Mountains. We marveled at the winter wonderland we had stumbled into, thankful that the roads were still clear.

Lassen Peak was completely obscured in clouds, but as we descended back down on the other side of the mountain, the clouds parted and revealed a beautiful day at Manzanita Lake. Matt and I explored the trail around the lake before settling in around the fire that night.

The next day, I woke up early to do a little exploring in the morning light while Matt slept. The lake was teeming with ducklings and goslings, as well as lots of interesting lichens and mosses.

 

After breakfast, we explored several of the lakes and ponds along the main road, including Lily Pond and Summit Lake. We also took the interpretive trail around the aptly-named Devastated Area, where we learned that the last volcanic eruption from Lassen was only in 1915! That's not so long ago on volcano time, and apparently it was a massive eruption. Mudslides carried boulders larger than a car more than 3 miles from the blast site, and most the mountain blew itself up in the process.

Unfortunately, the main geothermal area (Bumpass Hell) was closed for boardwalk renovations, so instead we checked out Sulphur Works, a smaller geothermal area with a few boiling mud pots and sulphur vents. We attempted to find a trail promising to take us to Cold Boiling Lake, another area of geothermal activity, but there was so much snow on the ground that we couldn't even find the trailhead. Add to that our general lack of preparedness for snow (no hiking boots, few warm layers), we decided to skip the hypothermia this time around.

On Saturday night, we enjoyed completely clear skies and no moonlight, so the stars were incredible. It was quite cold (39F), so I tried to get a few long exposures before we retreated back to the fire for warmth. Even so, I was able to capture a couple of shooting stars.

On Sunday, we did a longer hike to Echo Lake. We enjoyed some scenic views of Lassen peak and somewhat chilly but pretty view of the lake.

After we got back to our cabin, we entertained the idea of renting kayaks out on Manzanita Lake, but again, it was quite chilly even at the campsite (elevation 5900 ft), so we decided to settle for a gorgeous sunset and campfire instead.

A complete set of photos from the trip can be found here.