National Park #6, canceled August 10, 2018
Our third and final destination on our summer 2018 road trip was Lassen Volcanic. Traveling from Crater Lake, we had time to stop at Burney Falls State Park before enjoying lunch at the Manzanita camp store just inside Lassen. We loved being with Jeremy’s family for Mount Rainier and Crater Lake, but due to distance for some and air quality for others (there was an even bigger fire in this area than near Crater Lake), we were on our own for this park.
As we made our way south toward our campground (Summit Lake South), our first stop was Devastated Area. There were all sorts of rocks there from the eruptions of the early 20th century. What used to be completely barren had grown up into a rock-strewn forest in the last 100 years. We spent quite a while here as the kids loved scrambling onto and jumping off of every rock they possibly could.
We arrived at our campsite and got it set up rather quickly. The girls met a family nearby and played with their kids while Jeremy and I put everything together. We walked over to the amphitheater for a ranger talk about bears, then strolled around the lake enjoying the sunset before calling it a night.
Our last park day was certainly a full one! We first headed south toward the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center, stopping briefly at Lake Helen. The girls enjoyed a scavenger hunt at the visitor center for their Junior Ranger badges, then we drove a mile up the road to the Sulphur Works hydrothermal area.
We had heard about a festival (Discover Lassen) in the Manzanita area, so we drove north back through the park and arrived in time for a fundraiser lunch. The girls made buttons and magnets, then painted a large picture of Lassen erupting. They even got to do some hands-on learning about trail work, moving a very heavy rock and sawing a deep cut in a log.
When the festival ended at 2:00, we drove around the corner to Manzanita Lake where we rented kayaks and spent an hour on the water. The girls wanted to swim afterwards, but that was dampened when Briella lost one of her sandals in the murky shore water. No amount of searching could find it, and we had to give up after about an hour.
After dinner at the camper store, we went across the street to the Lily Pond Nature Trail. The girls liked finding each numbered sign that told me which paragraph to read in the interpretive brochure. We had planned to drive straight back to camp, but spotted some deer at the Hat Lake parking area. So we stopped and got some great pictures of them, then enjoyed the view of Hat Creek meandering through the meadow.
That night was a new moon, and the day before the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, so we went to bed early and set an alarm to wake up at 11:30 to see what we could. Thankfully, the sky had cleared of smoke, and we had a great view from our picnic table. Mikayla decided to stay in bed, but Jeremy and Briella both saw one shooting star and I saw three. We didn’t stay out long because we had an early start the next morning.
We had everything taken down and packed up just as light was beginning to peek through the trees in the morning. Driving through the park was beautiful as the sun rose through the smoky skies. We do need to return since the flagship trail through Bumpass Hell was closed, but we certainly enjoyed everything we were able to do.
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