California's Yellowstone

8/5/2017

I woke far before my hippie neighbors and set off from my campsite in pursuit of greener pastures. Or, in this case, bluer skies. I was pretty dang tired of staring at gray smoky non-landscapes, especially when I knew that I was driving through really scenic areas.

I hit the road for a couple short hours – funny how anything less than 5 hours of driving now seems quite short – and wound my way up into the mountains to Lassen Volcanic National Park. This park is surprisingly comparable to Yellowstone National Park, albeit at a much smaller scale. Geothermal springs and hot pots bubble amidst wildflower-filled meadows while large dormant volcanoes masquerading as mountains tower above. Lakes dot the landscape, some steaming with heat from volcanic hearts and others nearly frozen by late spring snows. And best of all: the shape of the surrounding mountain region prevented the park from being buried in smoke! Oh, blue skies, how I’ve missed you!

Jane and I wound our way up to the Manzanita Campground and set up camp before heading on to check out the park. The majority of the attractions are located along the scenic road crossing the park, so I started by driving that in its entirety, stopping along the way at overlooks. I was very surprised to see that there was still a lot of snow near the crest of the road – in fact, one of the most popular trails was still closed due to snowfall! This is a far cry from the dry, droughty California that I traveled a few years ago.

Check out the height of the snow vs. the SUV in front of me!

Jane observes a snowy lake.

My first glimpse of evidence of the geothermal activity underlying the park was at Sulphur Works, where a bubbling cauldron of mud frothed and spit near the road. Several steam vents hissed nearby, expelling a characteristic strong rotten egg smell steadily.

The whites, yellows, and reds of the sediments here are a good clue that point towards nearby geothermal activity

But I’ll be honest: it was a bit anticlimactic. When I first looked this park up, I saw the word “geothermal” and immediately envisioned impressive Yellowstone-like hot pots and springs. This was not that. And even more unfortunately, the park’s very popular geothermal basin (I'll tell you what it's called later) was inaccessible due to the snow! Now there’s a problem I never expected to have in California in August.

I moved on and stopped at the visitor center on the south end of the park, where I hiked out to Mill Creek Falls. The walk through the fields on the way out to the waterfall was spectacular. Certainly it was nothing compared to the views at Mount Rainier or in Glacier, but I was so happy to have blue skies again that it felt like the entire world had opened back up. On this side of the park, vast fields of tall grasses and white flowers roll across hills, broken only by tall robust pines. In more forested areas of the hike, evergreen boughs descend down to the earth, providing little nooks and crannies for wildlife to peer out from. It all seems very removed from the volcanic spectacles that the park is best known for. There's no boiling springs or mud pots or steam vents here, just bubbling brooks and swaying grasses, weaving an infinitely more peaceful song for the landscape. It's the kind of place that makes you take a few deep breaths just to feel how alive and well you are.

It's also a great place to make a lot of noise with a muscle car, I guess.

The falls themselves were even more spectacular. Highlighted by the vibrant reds and greens of the rocks behind them, the cascading waters are strikingly brilliant. I arrived at that perfect time of day, just in time to watch the waters catch the low-angled light and bounce it about in a myriad of colors and patterns. I stopped to dabble my feet in the headwaters for a bit and to think about rocks and plants and things. It's nice, having all these wonderful things to see in the world. Sometimes I've just got to stop to really think about everything I've seen, just to fully enjoy it all.

Eventually I headed back to the visitor center to inquire about hiking to do in lieu of the closed hike. But I was in luck! A helpful ranger informed me that I could indeed hike to the park’s famous geothermal basin using a back trail to circumvent the snowy closed parts! Excellent, a perfect hike for tomorrow. 

And now for the name of that geothermal basin: Bumpass Hell. Yes, really. I've been waiting all post just to tell you that there is a place on earth that possesses this name, and it's full of steam vents and mud pots and generally awesome terrible stuff. I have to admit that while I was very interested in seeing the best geothermal features of Lassen Volcanic, some immature part of me just really wanted to hike to a place called “Bumpass Hell”. I mean, honestly, who wouldn’t?! For the record – apparently this place was named because a fellow with the last name of Bumpass (yes, really) fell in to one of the springs here and burned his leg, then declared the entire basin “hell”. And somehow just no one ever changed the name.

Anyways, I figured I'd leave that for the morning. I still had some light left, so Jane and I hightailed it back to Manzanita Campground and I took a nice walk around Manzanita Lake.

Jane looking very small in front of Lassen Peak.

Obligatory picture of me. I have gotten very tan.

A weird fungus!

The same picture as above, but this one has ducks so it's better.

I returned after nightfall to find the campground alive and bustling – no peaceful, quiet campground here! The whole place is somewhat bowl-shaped, which has the effect of ensuring that you can hear every neighbor’s conversation all at once. Fortunately, my campsite was on the edge of the grounds so I only listened to about 20 people yelling at each other about whatever.

I think I may be getting a little grumpy and crotchety. Probably I should return to “society” soon to avoid becoming a hermit entirely! But before I go, I’ve got a few more hikes to do… until then, Kelly signing out.