We got up early for our hour drive to Lassen Volcanic NP. This is a small NP but packed with plenty of interesting stuff. We stopped at the Visitor center to collect our 51st Passport Stamp,watched the park movie, and looked through the gift store and exhibits. The park contains all four types of volcanoes (Shield, Cinder Cone, Plug and Composite) in one area, which is rare. Lassen Volcano is a plug volcano, its last major eruption was on 22 May 1915. The devastation from that eruption, and the one three days prior, blew out the north east side of the mountain and caused a avalanche of melted snow, rock, mud and trees down the side of the mountain. We visited the geothermal features at Sulfur Works and then hiked the Bumpass Hell trail (which had just reopened after major repairs) (2.8 miles, 436 ft elevation gain, 657 calories burned) to the more remote formations. After seeing the geothermal formations at Yellowstone earlier in the year, we found these to be underwhelming. But still interesting. We wrapped up our visit by driving the rest of the main road with a short hike through the area devastated by the eruption in 1915. It’s amazing how the huge boulders were rolled down the mountain by the force of water and mud.
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| Entrance Sign |
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| Mud Pot |
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| Bumpass Hell geothermal formation |
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Mount Lassen
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