Lassen National Park

We concluded this phase of our travels at Lassen Park where the weather was perfect, warm with enough breeze to keep us comfortable on our hikes.

We started with a stroll around Manzanita Lake in the late afternoon and caught these ducks settling in for the night.

Geese also added their comments.

The next morning we learned about the inside of volcanoes from a ranger.  He started with a brief history of the park.  Lassen Peak and the slightly smaller Brokeoff Mountains are part of what once was Mt. Tehema.  Mt. Lassen last erupted  in 1917.  Then he explained  mudpots, fumaroles and boiling pools, all of which we saw on later hikes.  The land continues to change.  He had photos of Sulphur Works, a boiling mudpot pot,  from a few decades ago.  It has moved several feet down the hill since we were last here in the 70s.

This is a greatly enlarged photograph of the life form that lives in the sulphur ponds.

Bumpass Hell still smells as “sweet” as ever.  Along our hike there we heard conversations in many languages.  It is nice to see international visitors enjoying our natural wonders.

 And thanks to the Israelis who took this picture for us.

The fumeroles boiled

and mudpots cracked.

The boardwalk has to be moved regularly because new pots and fumerols open up under where it is presently located.

On our second morning, Jeff hiked to Lassen Peak and enjoyed the view of Mt. Shasta and the Sacramento Valley, sadly hazy from fires. 

We admired the brilliant colors of Lake Helen

and Emerald Lake which gets its rich colors from the algae growing in the shallow lake.

This deer is following his companions into the woods.

We were misguided on our walk to find Cold Boiling Lake and, instead, enjoyed the bubbling and tumbling of this lovely stream.

We walked through the Devastation Area seeing how far humongous boulders traveled when hurled from deep in an exploding volcano.   These “young rocks” were formed in that eruption one hundred years ago.  They are mere infants in comparison to many of the ancient rocks in the area.

The Puzzled Rocks cracked because they cooled from the outside in causing deep fracturing.

We ended our trip with a stop at the Loomis Museum to see the equipment Benjamin Franklin Loomis used when photographing the eruption and to admire his pictures.  He and his family lived in the park and were the ones to give the land to the park service to create Lassen NP in 1916.







This young man had been working on the original seismograph that was installed almost 100 years ago for the past two years.  It has not worked in almost 10 years and he is trying to restart it.

 A sunset walk around Lily Pond led us to a doe and her fawns but they would not permit photos.  Mt. Lassen looks cast in gold as the sun was setting.

Our travels with Jeff are always wonderful but these were special for the memories of the many plays seen in Ashland over the years and past trips to Lassen when he and his sister were children.