Lassen Volcano National Park

Hello again, blog followers.  We were camped at Lassen Volcano National Park the past two nights and had no connections.  The park is in northern California in the Cascade Mountain Range.  It was a days drive from the coast over the mountains and so it was put on as a whistle stop.  Linda got her book stamped and we took a day tour.  We camped at 7000 feet and it was pretty cold, 30 overnight.  The trailer has a propane heater but it also needs battery for the fan so we use it sparingly, just enough to make it tolerable.

Lassen Volcano NP was made a national park in 1916.  It is small in size compared to Yellowstone and Glacier.  Lassen Volcano last erupted in 1914 and 1915 and the eruptions were captured on camera at the time.  There are pictures of the eruptions in the Visitor Center.  There are also placard photos along the main road of the devastation from the eruptions and the volcano rocks are still there.  The most notable one is "Hot Rock".  People were there days after the eruption and the story  goes it was still sizzling.  That couldn't happen today.  You know they would have police barricades on every road going in.

All the devastation is now pretty much erased by tree growth.  A hundred years makes a difference.  The earth is constantly being renewed, destroyed and rebuilt, sometimes relatively fast but mostly over time that we have trouble imagining.  But it happens.  The Terra Firma below our feet is not so Firma!

The park, being in the middle of all the volcano activity also has some active thermal features like Yellowstone.  I didn't know any other place but Yellowstone had those.  Lassen has some mudpots, steam vents and a pseudo-geyser.  I'm not sure what that is, we didn't see it.

We are in Reno, NV tonight and head on to Yosemite NP tomorrow.  We're going downtown after Linda gets her laundry done.  Reno has a sign over the main downtown street that says, "Welcome to Reno, The Biggest  Little  City in the World."

Mount Lassen Volcano

Hot Rock Sign

Hot Rock

Lassen Volcano landscape rocks

Devastation Sign - all treed over now.

Lassen Volcano mudpot

Lassen Volcano Sulphur Works

Emerald Lake at Lassen Volcano