lovely Lassen part three, King's Creek

After our hike to Bumpass Hell the day cleared and warmed up. We were treated to views of snow dusted Lassen Peak for the rest of the morning but the warm day took the frosting away by noon. The most popular features of Lassen Volcanic National Park are the volcano, thermal vents, and hot spring fed lakes, but there are wide meadows with meandering streams and varied forest landscapes resulting from past volcanic activity. From the winding park road we looked down through the sparse forest near the peak to see Upper Meadow and the King’s Creek area. The emerald patch was very inviting so we decided to have our second hike of the day on the creek.We stopped for lunch on the bank and some North American Dippers kept us company. They are entertaining small blue-grey birds that wade and dive into streams to catch food. They use their wings to swim under water too. Perched by the creek side they do a bouncing dance that is the origin of their name. For encroaching on their space the Dippers scolded us with a few bobs and sharp “zeets” then carried on searching for their own lunch.

mrs. a-go-go felt a mild cold coming on so we decided that we had had enough hiking for the day. We spent the afternoon exploring what we could from the road including the Devastated Area to the northeast of the peak. Lassen is at the southern end of the Cascades and has had its share of recent volcanic activity. The last major eruption was in 1915 and it was this eruption and pyroclastic flow that created the Devastated Area. The forest here has a different character due to its young age. The contrast is starkly visible in a patch of old forest that was shielded from the blast by dormant Crescent Crater on the flank of Lassen Peak. Strewn across the Devastated Area are sore thumb boulders laying where the eruption dropped them in 1915. The most fascinating are the puzzle stones. These black rocks are split into three dimensional jigsaw pieces that remain interlocked. Ejected from the volcano a puzzle stone’s surface cooled quickly while the center remained hot, and the outer shell split into wild shapes as it shrank. Near the road side we passed Hot Rock. B.F. Loomis traveling through the area in 1915 noted that this large boulder was still too hot to touch days after the eruption.

As our day was ending we decided to start for home and not stay another night. Many of the sights would require a hike we knew we wouldn’t have the energy, so the rest of Lassen would have to wait for another trip. On our way back to the south entrance we stopped for a snack in a clearing by the side of the road. There we had our once-in-a-lifetime sighting. The swinging arms, furry mane, and, “I’m getting outa here,” gait were a dead giveaway even from forty yards away.

lovely Lassen part two, Bumpass Hell!

The morning was bright with fast moving clouds dappling the sunlight. We rubbed our eyes and headed out early to hike to Bumpass Hell, a very active volcanic thermal vent area in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Lassen Peak was frosted with snow or maybe a blanket of hail and we stopped along the way for a few photos. There were only two other cars in the trail head parking area when we arrived. The sky seemed to be clearing for us but the air was bitter cold. The chill and the altitude made mrs. a-go-go’s asthma kick in right away so it was slow going. A mile and a half hike at 8000 feet wore me out too. Fortunately we could hear the hissing steam of the big vent once we had walked to the top of a ridge.
Hearing the cauldron we could believe that it wasn't much further so we muddled through. The steam clouds smell like rotten eggs and the 4th of July. As we approached the constant booming hiss of the main vent became overwhelmingly loud. It sounded like a never ending blast from an enormous locomotive. It's a swell alien landscape with orange and yellow sulfur crystals and bubbling mud pots. The big vent is a howling furnace with a constant jet of supper heated steam. The cloud would blow over the board walk once in a while and the heat and steamy breath was surprising.

The thermal vents at Sulfur Works are well fenced, but the board walk at Bumpass Hell lets one walk close to the bubbling mud pots and hot puddles. Close enough that if the steam blows the right way it gets uncomfortably hot. The places are blanketed with warning signs that ask people not to leave the board walks, because too often some one tries to get closer and falls through the crust into boiling mud and steam. Mr. Bumpass himself (the namesake of the place) lost his leg after he fell through into super heated mud.
There were a few spots where enough sulfur condensed out of the steam to build a visible crystal crust. Mostly it looks like turmeric sprinkled around. The hot ponds were all odd colors from turquoise or green to orange and the milky stream flowing out of Bumpass coated its banks with white and yellow. Plenty of knuckleheads make the walk to Bumpass Hell. People had thrown junk into several of the mud pots to see if they would melt or corrode or whatever. There was a pencil, a water bottle, wadded trash, several obviously misplaced rocks, and many twigs and wood debris. There aren't nearly enough trees alive near the vents to supply all the wood debris, and the majority of it had to be yanked off trees from up the trail and thrown into the cauldrons. It’s sad that people insist on being dopes, but the strangeness of the place overcomes all the human wreckage. The day had begun to warm up so we hiked up from Bumpass Hell and out to see more of our cloudy heaven.

road trip anecdote, lovely Lassen, part one

I had been curious about Lassen Volcanic National Park for years after reading accounts of how few visitors the park gets compared to the wildly popular Yosemite and Sequoia. So we decided to make it the destination for our summer trip in 2009. If you have been reading the previous posts you will have heard the stories about some of our stops along the way, the Bristlecone Pines and Bodie Ghost Town. We try to find things to do along the way on long trips to break up the route and shorten our drive times. We had been traveling for five days before we reached our goal, Lassen. Snow falls well into the summer in Lassen and the main road typically is not open until July 4th. We arrived in early August to find patches of snow still on the ground, and a warning from the ranger at the entrance station that a thunder storm was moving in for the night. The weather had been very good to us up to then, no wind or rain, not too cold (even at 6,000 feet) but now it looked like we were in for it. Clouds were filling the sky and a sprinkle of rain came down.

At our campsite we strung up a tarp and pitched the tent underneath. With three hours of daylight we took a drive up the mountain to see what we could before the storm. A modest wind was whipping mist and clouds over the road so we didn’t go far. Got a taste of the stink at the Sulfur Works thermal vents and we watched steam rise from a hot spring lake. Back at the campground the rain began in waves and turned to hail and cold wind. We ate our dinner in the car through the worst of it while the tent and tarp took a beating. Our plan was to sleep in the car if the thunder and lightning arrived, that being the safest place in an electric storm. I checked on the state of the tent, it was holding up well and was dry inside, so we bided our time and read books in the car until the sunlight faded. With no thunder we didn't feel the need to stay in the car all night and dashed into the tent when there was a slight lull in the rain and hail. We scrambled in through the tent flap and were warm and dry enough to survive the night. We went to sleep by the steady drip drop on the tarp and hoped that we’d see some sun in the morning.