Lassen Volcanic National Park, California

September 5, 2025

Keeping with the volcanic theme, we moved further south to Lassen Volcanic National Park, yet another attraction that owes its existence to the thousands of years that Mother Earth was unable to keep down her lunch.

Our travel day was quite pleasant, with few sightings of civilization of the human variety. We did have to negotiate passage with a band of cows, but our sheer massiveness intimidated them into standing down.

The Standoff

Mount Shasta in the distance

Once again, we had a pull-through site that was a little tight to maneuver into, but it wasn't as tight as the one we had at Crater Lake recently. Rick, being the expert that he is, was able to get us situated perfectly without any shimmying this time.

Our campsite at Manzanita Lake Campground

The first day after arrival was cloudy with some rain, so Rick made bread and Julie did the monthly finances and bill paying. We also both starting reading the Hunger Games series. Yeah, we're a bit late to the party, we know. The new cell phone booster that Rick had recently installed was not enough to get us anything approaching reliable internet at our campsite (boosting a signal of near zero still gives you pretty much zero), so we made the occasional trek to nearby Loomis Plaza for the park's free WiFi when we wanted to be connected.

Wednesday was expected to be a sunnier day, so we headed up into the main part of the park for some hikes and sightseeing.

Didn't want to lollygag here too long, with the timber falling and all

Near the top of the park

Lake Helen with Mount Diller in the background

Our first stop was to hike the Bumpass Trail that goes through a mini-Yellowstone area known as Bumpass Hell.

The beginning of the trail treated us to views of the peaks left behind after thousands of years of volcanic eruptions

This illustration shows the outline of the former Mt. Tehama, a composite volcano which collapsed on itself a long time ago.

The Dixie Fire of 2021 burned nearly 70% of the park. It was strange to see such an abrupt line of demarcation here.

Our first view of Bumpass Hell. The sulfurous smell of it preceded the sight of it!

News reporters had such a way of words back then!

In case people need a little extra visual incentive to stay on the trail

Julie was a little hesitant to touch the water, but it was right along the trail, and there were no "death to all who go here" signs. For those that are curious, the water was pleasantly warm and did not burn through her finger or anything.

If we had seen the "pool of acid" first, Julie probably wouldn't have put her finger in the water downstream from here.

The "Big Boiler" was quite loud. It sounded like some kind of massive industrial plant machinery.

This is a closeup of some boiling muddy, acidic water

We climbed the trail a ways to a different vantage point

Enough of Hell... how about some flowers?

This was an out-and-back trail, so we returned the way we came

You can just barely see Bumpass Creek down below

For lunch, we drove a little way to Emerald Lake.

From there, we drove to more sights along the main park road and walked the intriguing-sounding Cold Boiling Lake Trail.

More boiling mud right at the side of the road

A different view of Lake Helen

The trail through burnt forest to the highly anticipated Cold Boiling Lake

Are we there?

Well, this little spring-like water body was indeed bubbling...

...but the incrementally larger "lake" was completely flat and had no bubbles

The swamp surrounded by dead trees vibe wasn't quite what we were in the mood for, so we left

Back through the burnt forest

We decided that Cold Boiling Lake was not worth the effort of 1-1/2 miles round-trip. We give it an effort rating of maybe 50 feet round-trip, as long as there is no elevation gain.

The next day, we stayed closer to home and walked around Manzanita Lake.

Skippy was attempting to run with this pine cone that was almost as big as himself!

The mountain in the center is Lassen Peak. It was most recently active from 1914-1917.

This photo was taken from the same vantage point in 1914, during one of the eruptions.

A Steller's Jay

Manzanita Creek

Our campground (the cabin loop)

On our last day, we walked to the park museum to learn more about the past volcanic activity in the park and to take a nearby trail to a small lake and a lily pad pond. The lily pads were past their prime and the pond was not particularly attractive (hence no pictures), but Julie got a couple of shots of Reflection Lake.

Reflection Lake --same mountains as we saw at Manzanita Lake

Lassen Peak

The museum had an interesting movie describing the history of the volcanic activity in the park as well as several historic photographs of the last eruptions of Lassen Peak in 1914-1917. You can view the photographs here.

That's all for now!

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