Mount Lassen

 Day 48: July 10, 2021

We drive to Lassen Volcanic National Park

We are in the midst of another heat wave here in the valley, so we were up early and out by 7 for the drive to Lassen Volcanic National Park. The park Visitor Center doesn’t open until 9 am, so we took the road in from the Manzanita Lake area and drove around the mountain.

We missed taking photos of the Chaos Crags and Chaos Jumbles. It was a weird landscape, almost lunar, with grayish gravelly “soil” and covered with sharp-edged rocks and boulders. That was what I saw. But what this area really is is a series of volcanic cones— the youngest volcanic cones in the area.

Meet Hot Rock. Hot Rock (at 300 tons) is the volcanic equivalent of Big Tree seen in the Redwoods NP. This huge boulder was expelled from Lassen, a plug domed volcano, when it erupted in 1915. It was still sizzling water some 40 hours after it was ejected from the crater of the volcano on May 19. That’s Lassen in the background—this Hot Rock traveled a LONG way to land here, carried by a snow avalanche, down the side of the mountain.

Manzanita Lake was formed 300 years ago when a rock avalanche (Chaos Jumbles) from Chaos Crags rode down the mountain on a current of compressed air and dammed the Manzanita River, forming this lake.

Lots of pine cones on the ground in the Devastated Area trail. We saw Lodgepole Pine , Jeffery Pine, Mountain Hemlock, Red Fir, and Douglas Fir on our visit.

Silverleaf Lupine

Hat Creek

Lassen is to the left center and Crescent Crater to the right of Lassen (the grey peaks with the depression in the center) as seen from Devastated Area.

Summit Lake

With temperatures rising, even though it was still mid-morning, families were getting ready to float on Summit Lake! Small campgrounds were full in both North and South campgrounds on this lake.

Dan pulled in to a turnout and “made” me take this photo. Not exactly sure why. (Now if he’d only pulled over the three times I asked him to so I could take a photo of California Corn Lilies—a flower I don’t think I’ve ever seen!) I think he wanted a photo that showed the snow on the peak….not much to be seen!

The “back” side of Lassen. This is the trail head for the summit. How cool it would be to be able to hike this steep, switchback laden trail and peer into the crater! We sat in the parking lot and I pulled out the field glasses to look for hikers. Several started their hike and made a right turn and disappeared into the trees on the right side. I blew this photo way up and if you use your imagination, just along the top ridge line, there are two pairs of rock, made of two rocks to each pair. Still, using your imagination, there is a tiny bump and an even tinier bump closer to the rightmost pair of rocks; these are the heads of the hikers just visible on the trail just over the side of that ridge line. The only reason I know that is because I was watching them with the field glasses!! My knee winced just looking at that incline!!

The color of Shadow Lake, obviously way down from maximum capacity, got today’s prize for most photos. I’d move a couple of steps and take a slightly different angle. It was a beautiful scene. 

Shadow Lake with shadows in the photo. (Lucky you, I only put two of the many photos in here!)

Another big rock, in this case a “glacial erratic”.  A glacier from Brokeoff Volcano (now decayed and collapsed from it’s heyday about 400,000 years ago) picked up this boulder and carried it down the side of the mountain, deposited it here, and here it sits. 

Brokeoff Mountain, a composite volcano; it’s all that is left of the Brokeoff Volcano from 400,000 years ago. It is the only composite volcano in the park—one that has layers of volcanic rock, lava, cinders, and ash that erupts from a central vent or group of vents.

Looking back at the “back side” of Lassen

The sulfurous Bumpus Hell area.

Boiling caldron of mud, heated by a hydrothermal system that lies deep underground. These features are proof that there is still potential for future eruptions.

Mountain monardella

I have no idea what we are doing tomorrow. The car thermostat said 115F as we were heading home from Lassen. Tomorrow is supposed to be similar… I think Dan is planning something…maybe just sitting in the air conditioned RoadHouse?? Stay tuned!