Northwestern Wanderings - Lassen National Monument

Mount Lassen

August 8, 2017

By 9:00 we were out of the house and on our way to Lake County.  Middletown seemed as good a place as any to stop for brunch.  We ate at Balulah's what one would expect for a Lake County diner.  Once we were on 5 in Willows, we decide since it was still relatively early in the day, we'd head up Highway 36 for the eastern entrance into Lassen National Park and spend the day driving through the park. 

Lake Helen and Mount Lassen

 Lake Helen was a beautiful surprise after a quick stop at the visitor center. 

 The lake was in mid-thaw and looked quite magical.  

Along the highway

While viewing the lake we were greeted by a soft rain that quickly turned very hard and it began to hail.  I was wise enough to head for the car while the rain was still light.  

A few more miles down the road the sky exploded into a downpour.  About 5:00 we arrived, in the downpour, at our campsite realizing how silly it was to have all our rain gear under the pop up. After about 10 minutes the rain began to subside enough to take out an umbrella and get up on our leveling blocks.  By 6:30 the sun was shining once again.  

August 9

Around 9:00 we headed back to the southern part of the park. 

Summit view to the north

 Our first stop was toward the road's summit where graduated hill lines graced us all around the peak of Mt. Lassen.  

Lake Helen and Mount Lassen

We returned to Lake Helen to see how it looked in the sunshine.

We started out on a short 1 and 1/2 mile hike to Cold Burning Lake.  

King's Meadow

At the trail head there were 2 trails, one up a hill and another along a stream through the meadow.  We assumed the easy hike would be along the stream. Unfortunately we hiked to Kings Meadow and had to retrace our steps to the correct trail, adding a good 1/2 mile to our hike.    

Once we climbed the hill the trail was mild.  

Patch of snow on trail to Cold Boiling Lake

We even had a patch of snow on the trail!  

Cold Boiling Lake

Cold Boiling Lake was a beautiful alpine lake with a few small bubbles surfacing. 

Boiling part of Cold Boiling Lake

 Had we continued up the trail, in 2 miles it would have arrived at an overlook for Bumpus Hell, all up hill.  We passed on that. Hiking out we were glad we'd gotten an early start because of the multitudes we passed while hiking out. Since the picnic tables were all full, we set up our chairs on the meadow and relaxed and ate lunch.

We stopped at the Devastated Area and walked the short trail. 

Mark read about a cinder cone at Butte Lake, so we east for 32 miles from the north entrance to the park and another 8 miles down a gravel road.  Once there we found that there was a hike of 1 1/2 miles down to the cinder cone.  Since it had heated up to 81  in this part of the park, we decided not to make the hike.  Butte lake was picturesque, but the campground, while uncrowded, was very dry and dusty.  We had noticed a view point along the road as we drove in, so we made a stop at Hat Creek View Point.  A storm was approaching and it proved to be an excellent place to observe it with views all around.  As the raindrops began to increase in size and number we decided to watch from the car.  Driving back toward Mount Lassen the rain changed from hard rain to really hard hail falling so quickly that we pulled over to the side of the road to wait it out along with many others.  

Back at the campground at Manzanita Lake all was dry and stayed that way for the evening.