Lassen Volcanic National Park in the time of Covid 19, July 13-16 2020

This was our second trip together to Lassen Volcanic National Monument.  I've visited a handful of times, the first withh with mom and dad when I was about 6.  Hopefully I still  have the slide of mom and I sitting on a big bolder wearing out zorries in the snow at Bumpus Hell that daddy took.

On this adventure we decided to drive into the park through Chico, a town we’d never visited before.  

I love entering the park through the southwest entrance because you pass by Lake Helen.  We visited 3 years ago in August and the lake was surrounded by snow and the lake full of chunks of ice, what a difference this year.

Lake Helen


Our campsite was located in Summit Lake North Campground.  We were in site 15.  We shared the site with Terri since it had plenty of room to spread out.  We liked the sites nearer to the lake in the B section for a future reference, the further back in the campground one got the more difficult it would be to level out.

Campsite 15 

Summit Lake was a few hundred feet from our campsite. 

Summit Lake

As we settled into our campsite we were visited by Robins with breasts much brighter orange than we see at home, yellow and black Western Tanagers and Evening Grosbeaks.  There turned out to be a robins nest in a tree near the food box in the campsite adjacent to ours.

Sitting around the campfire at twilight, Terri mentioned a birder had reported seeing Night Hawks.  Doggone if they didn't make an entrance into the almost dark sky soaring and making a BEEErzh sound, which demanded our attention.  They visited each evening, but not with the show time they gave us that first night.

Mark along trail around Manzanita Lake

Our first full day began with a drive to Manzanita Lake.  While Mark was shooting a fallen tree, along the trail at Manzanita Lake I took advantage of this photo op.

Mount Lassen from Manzanita Lake Trail

All the swimmers had migrated up to Summit Lake for the day and few people were in site as we hiked the 1.8 miles around Manzanita Lake, where we spotted a White-headed Woodpecker at work in a tree and a Bald Eagle soaring and  later sitting atop a snag.

Killer River Otter, Oh my!

After our hike we attempted to drive up to Hat Creek View Point to have lunch and enjoy the view of Mounts Shasta and Lassen.  Unfortunately, the road to the the viewpoint was closed, so we decided to drive a little further and check out Subway Cave.  The parking lot was almost full and along with that came lots of people, people who weren’t sporting masks.  Deciding that a cave was a closed in area, not a good place to be at this time, we drove back toward the park and stopped along the way for lunch.

Back in the park we stopped by the store to look for a toothbrush for Mark.  The store was all sold out of those, but Terri and I found a frosty machine and cooled off with a frosty treat, little did we know we were making a big mistake!  

All night long my stomach rumbled, I chalked it up to the salami I had eaten at lunch until Terri and I compared notes the next morning, she thought her stomach was upset from the turkey she had at lunch or the salmon for dinner.  We deduced that something was amiss with the ice cream.  

Mount Lassen from midway up trail to Echo Lake

Wednesday morning, after breakfast Terri, Mark and I set out along the shore of Summit Lake.  Terri and I destined for to Echo Lake while Mark explored around the shore line of Summit Lake in pursuit of minimalism.  

The greenery under the sign was a low growing manzanita, it covered the mountains.

Fork in the trail about a mile up the mountain

The elevation change  climbing to Echo Lake was 416 feet.  What a glorious sight the lake was as we reached the final summit and dropped to the lake shore.

Echo Lake at an altitude of 7,136 feet

As we were leaving the lake shore, a mother and her 2 sons who appeared to be under 5 approached the lake, the little ones running ahead in fits of joy pulling off there shoes preparing to join their dad and older brother in the water. .

Once we made it past the sweltering climb out of the basin, the rest of the 1.9 mile hike was a piece of cake.  Mark said we looked like a pair of pack mules who’d put in a hard day as we wondered back into the camp.  We sure slept well!


Thursday morning we left Summit Lake around 7:30.  We decided to get an early start and hopefully chance upon a campsite at Juniper Lake.  While driving out of the park I saw 2 Sooty Grouse who took flight right in front of the truck acting like wild turkeys.

We stopped in Chester to get ice and fill up with gas before heading down the 13 mile gravel road to the lake.  Driving in we passed one car pulling a tent trailer coming the opposite way, this gave us hope that we would find a site. Once we reached the lake we found the campground nestled down along the shore of the lake, a beautiful, though small campground with only 20 sites, described by Google as "a remote, rustic facility in the southeastern part of Lassen Volcanic National Park".  Not quite remote and rustic enough, all the sites were spoken for.     

Juniper Lake from Inspiration Point

We continued on around the lake and parked at the day use area where Terri and I hiked the mild .8 mile round trip trail up to Inspiration Point.  The elevation gain was 400 feet, about the same as we'd done yesterday, except the elevation gain was in about half a mile, instead of 1.9 miles, a bit more challenging when you start at  an elevation of 6,800 feet.  Needless to say, the trek down was a piece of cake the entire way.

Leichtlin’s Mariposa Lily

These pretty little flowers were blooming at the summit.  They are native to the Sierra Nevada area from Redding down to Death Valley and are also called Smokey Mariposa.

Butte Lake

The views all around from the point were....

Mount Lassen from Inspiration Point

...Inspirational!!

The following picture is an ode to Mark.

Tree skeleton

After lunch and a walk into the lake we said good bye to Lassen Volcanic National Park. 

Had the temperatures not have been close to 100, we might have tried to find a place to camp along Lack Almanor, or along the Feather River, but in the heat we decided home was the best place to be.  Thankfully, the heat wave of the prior week had broken and the fog had returned as we approached home.