Lassen

This past weekend, we got one last bit of summer vacation before school starts for Anne and I get ready for my final push of lab work before the lab moves to Sweden at the end of September. We decided to go to Lassen because it was on our list of "things to do in California before we move away," and Anne hadn't been but had been hearing me rave about it for years. My family often stopped there on the way to the Humboldt County coast for summer vacation, but I hadn't been since high school. Throughout our stay, I had periodic flashbacks to previous visits to the park. Even though I'd been there three or four times with my parents, the trip that seemed to stand out the most in my memory was the time I went with my eighth grade science class. In particular I remember Roger and I listening to Devo and Bartok with Mr. Langdon in his car on the ride up, learning how to tell a ponderosa from a Jeffrey pine ("gentle Jeffrey and prickly ponderosa"), and singing "America the Beautiful" Ray Charles-style with Larry from the top of Mt. Lassen.

I played hooky on Friday so we could arrive before the crowds (such as they are -- luckily far, far fewer people go to Lassen than Yosemite, even though it's roughly the same distance from San Francisco). We got there in the early afternoon, which gave us enough time to set up camp and go for a short day hike to the aptly-named Paradise Meadow. The next day, we took a long hike that left from our campground and looped through the backcountry on the east end of the park. The trail visited at least a dozen small lakes, one of which we stopped at for lunch and a swim. We got back to camp just in time to duck into our tent with our post-hike beers as an afternoon thunderstorm passed overhead. The next morning, we packed up early (for us, at least) and headed to the park's two main attractions: Mt. Lassen and Bumpass' Hell. The trail to the top of Mt. Lassen is relatively short because it starts at 8500', just 2000' below the summit. It was pretty hazy from the top, but we could still clearly make out Mt. Shasta to the north as well as the coast range on the far side of the Central Valley. After coming back down from the summit, we ate lunch and then headed to Bumpass' Hell. From the top of Mt. Lassen, there's not much to indicate that it's an active volcano, but Bumpass' Hell is full of gaseous vents and bubbling mud pots that prove this it's still a very geologically active area. Anne had never seen anything like it before, so it was a lot of fun to go there with her. Overall, the trip was a lot of fun. It was really cool going somewhere with Anne that I remember fondly from my childhood and having it live up to all of the hype.