High Sierra Topix

Last weekend the weather in Lassen Volcanic National Park was perfect--warm in the sun, cool in the shade. But we were surprised by the amount of snow: they had just opened the road through the park the week before, and snow levels were still around 7500 feet on the trails. Which meant that we tried to hike up from the Devastated Area to Terrace Lake, only to get turned back by heavy snow at about 7400 feet on the north side of the ridge.






About here we decided that it might not be worth continuing. We lost the trail and the snow slopes were getting pretty steep up ahead.



We also hiked down Hat Creek through the Reading Fire area...which was sad and sobering....and to the Devil's Kitchen out of Drakebad, and up Manzanita Creek. Lots of great hikes in this park. We'll go back later this year for a backpacking trip in the eastern part.



Rangers were recommending crampons for anyone climbing Lassen Peak itself (10,400.)




Hat Creek Cascade



Still, this is an amazing park that gets very little traffic and attention. And nice to see all that snow feeding the streams and rivers!

nice. somehow linked to the snow that Shasta produced in VacaRuss' report.

Yep. According to the NPS, Lassen is the Nexus between three key regions of the West. It's the northernmost part of the Sierra, the southernmost part of the Cascades, and the westernmost part of the Great Basin.

Cool place.

Nice TR! Lassen is a special place to my wife's family. They've been going up there camping in the summers around the fourth for about 50 years. Didn't go up there this year though.

Lassen is a really cool park with lots to see and not over visited like Yose and Seki. Really easy to get some solitude.

My back yard!!! I live in the Almanor area.

The eastern half of the Park and the adjacent Caribou Wilderness has all the secret spots that never see crowds. Easy off trail hiking.

And an area of magnetic anomalies that makes compasses erratic. Keeps your map reading and navigational skills sharp. Inexplicably, GPS signals intermittently go weird also.

dave54 wrote:My back yard!!! I live in the Almanor area.

The eastern half of the Park and the adjacent Caribou Wilderness has all the secret spots that never see crowds. Easy off trail hiking.

And an area of magnetic anomalies that makes compasses erratic. Keeps your map reading and navigational skills sharp. Inexplicably, GPS signals intermittently go weird also.

I'll have to hit you up next time I'm in the area Dave. We usually go up there for 4th about every 2-3 years. We usually set up a base camp out on forestry land between the Feather River Home sites and Domingo Springs and go into town for the Parade in Chester on the 4th. One of my wife's uncles lives on the Peninsula, and the other has a summer place in Chester.

Caribou is great, except the hordes of giant skeeters early in the season.. The areas around Juniper and Snag Lakes is pretty cool to explore as well.

psykokid wrote:...Caribou is great, except the hordes of giant skeeters early in the season...

I did my grad work on the Caribou Wilderness. I got a chuckle from the panel when I said the main wildlife species in the Caribou was mosquitoes. Yeah, they are fierce early summer. I joke you have to hike in the Caribou with rocks in your pockets else they will carry you off. I only go there in the Fall after a couple good hard frosts knocks back the buzzing clouds. Just over the hill to the west in the Park side very few mosquitoes -- different soils/geology, much less standing water. 600 lakes/ponds/tarns greater than 1 acre in size in the Caribou. The central lowlands is basically a conifer marsh.


I often disperse camp in my RV on the north side of the Park south of 44 and day trip. We stay at Butte Lake CG when we have the grandkids with us. Hardly anybody paddles on Butte Lake. All the years I have been going the most other paddlers I have seen on the lake is 2 or 3 at a time.