Lassen Volcanic National Park — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

This was the last National Park we planned on visiting on this far-flung road trip, and we weren’t really sure what to expect. Our first stop was at Chaos Jumbles, …

… which is a large rock avalanche from the Chaos Crags you can see in the background. This occurred 350 yrs ago, and it was interesting to see that only scattered trees had been able to grow in the area since.

We then passed by one of my favorite areas in the park - Lassen Peak with King’s Creek running through a meadow:

I really liked the swathes of blue and violet on Lassen’s shoulder -

Another favorite area was Lake Helen…

… which, when the wind was calm, gave a nice reflection of Lassen -

We of course had to hike to Bumpass Hell…

… which is the active geothermal area of the park. There were bubbling mud pots…

… beautiful collections of minerals around a steam vent…

… and multicolored acid pools -

This area was much smaller than similar ones that we’d seen in Yellowstone and Iceland, but the surrounding vegetation made a nice contrast -

The infamous Dixie Fire in 2021 burned an enormous amount of land, including about 2/3 of Lassen, but the denuded hillsides here revealed a colorful palette -