Lassen Volcanic National Park

The last post featured a dog. This one may or may not offer a cat.

Oregon was largely a bust. I had hoped to do some hiking around Mount Hood but ran into a full-on, early autumn, northwest rain storm. I drove around the mountain to maybe get some sun breaks, look at a waterfall even, but it was hopeless. I figured I could at least poke around Timberline Lodge for a bit but even there the horizontal torrents turned me back in the parking lot. In compensation, I had lunch in Portland with former Third Place Booksellers Erin and Abraham, on the verge of having their baby daughter. Then I headed to Bend where the forecast was more promising. I wanted to hike South Sister – I had done it once before, in a smoky haze - but the rangers informed me that South Sister was expecting a snow storm. So I gave up and headed to California, where I finally achieved one of my goals: hiking to the top of Lassen Peak.

I - Lassen Peak – September 21, 2016 – Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen Peak is the southernmost volcano in the Cascade chain extending from Mount Garibaldi in British Columbia all the way to northern California. Lassen is unique in a few ways among these volcanoes. It is the only one of the major Cascade volcanoes that is not a stratovolcano. All of the others were built up by many eruptions over thousands of years, each eruption adding increasing bulk to the central cone. Lassen is a plug volcano, which means it is basically one mass of rock that emerged via flowing lava in a short period of time, apparently in just a few years. Lassen is also the only major Cascade volcano without glaciers; it has only a small and diminishing permanent snowfield. Lassen is no beauty once the winter snow melts; it has exactly the looks one would expect from a plug volcano, even without knowing what a plug volcano is. Above all, Lassen is the only volcano in the continental United States to have erupted prior to the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens. Its eruptive period lasted from 1914-1917, with the biggest blast – in May, 1915 - devastating three square miles, a devastation that remains quite evident one hundred years later.

Lassen Peak

For my purposes though, Lassen is unique for its accessibility. It is one of only two Cascade volcanoes - Oregon's South Sister being the other – that day hikers can summit via an ice-free trail. Unlike South Sister, which is a bit of a beast, Lassen Peak is only 5.0 miles round trip with a 2000 foot elevation gain, modest numbers for strong hikers. The peak's 10,457 foot elevation does add the difficulty of thin air and tougher breathing for the unacclimated, which at this point certainly included me.

The hike's biggest challenge, though, is the cold wind. Lassen is the tallest peak in an abrupt mountain front and catches all the wind coming east across the Sacramento Valley. With this in mind, I waited out a couple of cloudy days to make my ascent on a day with a sunny forecast . Alas, the sun did not emerge from behind the thick overcast for most of the day, while the wind was strong and unrelenting - maybe not by mountaineering standards but certainly by those that day hikers are used to dealing with. The trail, which was in excellent condition, weaves its way up around boulders and krummholz that provided sporadic wind breaks, but without the sun this relief was meager. Hikers descending from the top, or from as far up the mountain as they had gotten, were mostly running, and not with glee. There was not a lot of pleasure being had out there that morning as far as I could tell.

Trail to Lassen Peak

 The visuals were not that inspiring either. In the gray light the volcanic rock was dim and dull. The sole bright spot lay on the southern horizon, where blue sky lit up a big beautiful lake. I was ready to write off the hike as something one might do in order to do it, but otherwise having little inherent value. Then the sun finally broke through and that helped a lot. It was still freezing in the wind but I was able to warm up in the windbreaks in preparation for the next bout of exposure. Plus the rocks started taking on some color. This proved valuable near the top of the mountain, where really for the first time all day I saw some exciting scenery, the remains of the two craters blown out in Lassen's 1915 and 1917 eruptions. I would very much have liked to explore them, but it was just too cold. Instead I headed straight for the summit.

Lassen Peak Crater

Lassen Peak Craters

Lassen Peak

from Lassen Peak trail (note wind on lake)

The official trail ends shy of the summit, so getting to the actual top requires a short but steep scramble over loose rock and unstable terrain. I had no real trouble with the footing but for the first time all day I felt the elevation on my lungs. And have I mentioned it was windy? Still, I was glad I made the extra effort. For one, the summit itself consists of a jumble of boulders that I could position myself within to maximize sun exposure and minimize wind. From this cradle I could look out over an entire 90 degrees or more of landscape that was not visible the entire way up, landscape that for me was the most spectacular of the day. In fact, the summit raised my opinion of the entire hike. I'm not sure I'd do it again, but I don't entirely dismiss the idea.

Lassen Summit

from Lassen Peak

Geology Interlude

Compared to 1980 Mount St. Helens, the 1914-17 eruptions at Lassen were small beer. They were not eruptions of pent up lava but rather a succession of steam explosions, caused by rain and snow melt seeping into the volcano, encountering molten rock, turning to steam, and exploding back out. In the first year of activity more than 180 of these explosions occurred, sending ash plumes as high as 10,000 feet above the mountain and tossing massive boulders down its side. The ash fell back to blanket the surrounding towns, but the boulders threatened only those curious enough to climb up to take a look. No real damage was incurred in the sparsely populated lower slopes.

This ended abruptly one night in May 1915 when a steam explosion blasted out a newly formed lava dome, setting off an avalanche that developed into a lahar and eventually a flood. A lahar is a mudflow that picks up boulders, trees, dump trucks, whatever along the way, a powerful, destructive force that destroyed everything in its path for seven miles, including several mostly unoccupied homes. The handful of people who were home that night were lucky indeed. According to the story, a dog wakened his owner to the danger and the man ran a mile to alert the other residents who then scrambled to safety. Sounds a bit too much like a Lassie adventure to me, but what do I know

The largest explosion came a week later. Rising lava had created another new dome and once more a steam explosion blew it out, sending a column of ash and gas more than 30,000 feet into the air, and setting off a pyroclastic flow: a high-speed avalanche of gas, hot ash, pumice, and rock fragments that devastated a 3-square-mile area. Once again a resulting lahar and flood swept through and somewhat extended the destruction from the week before, though this time no human lives or much else for that matter were in the way. Lesser steam explosions continued for another couple of years but gradually subsided, and Lassen Peak itself - though not the area of what is now the national park - has been quiet ever since.

Volcano experts refer to the 1914-17 events at Lassen as “relatively small”, but they caused a lot of excitement at the time. Of course they were big for the people nearby, demonstrating that secondary features of even minor volcanic events – mudflows and flooding - can be more dangerous than the eruptions themselves. Lassen's eruptions were also big for US vulcanism. This was the first time anything like that had happened in the US, allowing local geologists to explore and witness it first hand. A local amateur photographer by the name of Benjamin Loomis produced one of the first extensive photographic studies of a volcanic eruption. Plus no one at the time knew what was going to happen next, so the excitement is understandable.

President Roosevelt had designated portions of Lassen a national monument in 1907 but efforts to elevate it to a national park had run into solid opposition from ranchers and the US Forest Service. The 1915 eruptions swept aside these objections and Lassen was made a national park in 1916. Given the later assessment that the eruptions were a bit overrated, this promotion might seem hasty, but I don't think so. Lassen is a great volcanic study area, more so I believe than St Helens. Other than its largely inaccessible crater dome, St. Helens mostly offers a (terrific) landscape of destruction and recovery. Lassen has ongoing volcanic activity all over the place: steam vents and hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots, cinder cones, dacite domes, the works. Every known volcanic feature, says the NPS, except geysers.

II Brokeoff Peak – September 24, 1916 – Lassen Volcanic National Park

In fact, Lassen Peak is only a recent and comparatively minor incarnation in a landscape that has been volcanically active for 3 million years. Activity in what is now the national park began about 600,000 years ago, with the gradual construction of a large stratovolcano that geologists call Brokeoff Volcano. Brokeoff Volcano was about 11,000 feet high, roughly the height of Mount Hood. It was active for about 200,000 years before the eruptive center moved to the northeast and began sprouting a field of dacitic lava domes, many of which remain features in today's park. Lassen Peak itself did not emerge until roughly 27,000 years ago. A latecomer, yes, but also one of the largest plug volcanoes in the world.

In the meantime Brokeoff Volcano had been gradually eroding away, as the hot acidic water of its internal plumbing had turned hard lava into an easily eroded soft clay, which ice age glaciers made quick work of. Several of the current park's more prominent peaks - Brokeoff Mountain, Mount Diller, Mount Conard, and Diamond Peak – are remnants of Brokeoff Volcano, forming a rough semi-circle that marks the outer circumference of the eroded stratovolcano. And inside this semi-circle, what geologists call the “central depression”, lies a landscape that for me is the best part of the entire park. The eroded remains of the inner-volcano, hundreds of thousands of years on. Entire mountain walls made of soft white/pink/brown rock. It seems more spacious and in fact it is, like Yellowstone National Park though on a smaller scale, it is the center of a volcano that is no longer there.

Furthermore, this “central depression” is located in the south western section of the park where, descending from Lassen Peak toward Kohm-Yah-ma-nee Visitors Center, the ecosystem stages a dramatic transformation. The park is said to sit at the ecological crossroads of the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada, and the transition is startling. Up north, Manzanita Lake has a very northwest feel, dark forest and very rocky (though those rocks are largely the result of a collapse of another volcano, the Chaos Crags). The southern part of the park, is more, well, Californian: drier, sunnier, golden hills, fields of rabbit brush and mule's ears, the latter past flowering and looking like miniature corn stalks. The juxtaposition seems even odder to me since the southern section sits at a higher elevation. I've yet to find an explanation for this phenomenon, but I haven't given up either.

Brokeoff Mountain over "central depression"

Brokeoff Mountain

Rabbit Brush

Brokeoff Mountain

The park's main road slices right through this central depression so I could do my admiring from roadside turnouts. My favorite view is across Little Hot Springs Valley to a thick long ridgeside, nicely timbered but no so much to block out that lovely rock color or the rock formations not yet broken down. I take scores of pictures but it is hard to get the whole thing in its full glory. These are the best I've gotten so far.

For a closer look I set off one Saturday morning toward Brokeoff Mountain, looking very attractive as it loomed above southern portion of the park. At 9,235 feet, Brokeoff is the second tallest peak in the park behind Lassen itself, and entails a longer, steeper hike (7.2RT/2600' elevation) In compensation, I figured, it is surrounded by meadows and forest, not the harsh rocky slopes (or hopefully the abrasive wind) of the higher peak. A sign at the trailhead warned of cougar activity in the area but that is a fairly common thing. My feeling on cougars is somewhat fatalistic I guess. The signs always say to keep alert for cougars, a warning I find humorous. Cougars are top-grade stalkers and if you happen to see one it is mostly because it chose to show itself. If it decides to hunt you, you will likely become aware of it when it lands on your shoulders with its incises seeking the back of your neck. Happily, this is a very rare occurrence for humans.

I don't think I was more than a quarter-mile from the trailhead when I heard - very close by, on the other side of some thick foliage right in front of me – an aggressive growl of the sort I have never heard before other than on TV. I yelled and leaped backward with a sense that I could at any second be fighting off a cougar. No cougar, no sound, no anything came out of the brush and so I did what experts advise, back slowly away, keep your eyes open. Still nothing, so after a certain amount of backing away I turned around and returned to the car. No Brokeoff Mountain for me.

 Was it a cougar? I cannot say with certainty. I didn't see a cougar and am not familiar enough with them to positively identify their growl. I'll tell you this: if it was a lesser cat, a bobcat maybe, I sure would never want to hear a cougar up close. I am pretty sure it wasn't a bear. I'm more familiar with bears and it didn't sound like a bear. Plus a bear would not have remained quiet. It would have rumbled off into the woods making a lot of noise. Was it my imagination, stimulated by the trailhead warning sign? I doubt that very much. I've seen many such signs, and while I can be startled by my own shadow I have no history of imagining things in the wild. I heard that growl very close up and have to conclude it was a cougar. That's all I can say.

I reported my experience to the park ranger at the entrance station. She seemed to take me seriously and told me she would pass the information on. What might be done? Presumably nothing. Parks don't close trails for cougars like they do for grizzly bears. There already was a warning sign. My concern was that the cougar had possession of a kill, which was why it was defending its ground - I sure as hell didn't catch it unawares. But if this were the case the cougar would presumably have moved its kill to more secure terrain immediately after encountering me, first hiker , hiking alone, early in the morning.

III – Ridge Lakes – September 24, 2016 – Lassen Volcanic National Park

So somewhat anticlimactically, I set off on a substitute hike the ranger recommended, into an area more or less adjacent to one I abandoned, and yes I did imagine the cougar coming over this way, seeing me again, and deciding to get rid of me once and for all. This hike was a short but very steep ascent to Ridge Lakes, set in a beautiful basin with the the loveliest pinkish-white soil a clear indication of the eroded inner volcano. The ranger said I could extend the hike as long as I wished by climbing to the high ridge encompassing the lakes, a ridge that also connected Brokeoff Mountain to Mount Diller, thus constituting the outer edge of the eroded Brokeoff Volcano. There was no more trail but my hiking book offered two scramble options. I tried the one that headed toward the lowest saddle, figuring I could proceed further along the ridge from there, on the way passing through the largest lupine field I'd ever seen. The lupine was not in flower but it must be quite a sight when it is. From the saddle I could see Brokeoff Mountain, though not as clearly as I could see it from the road. I could also see a part of Lassen Peak, looking rather inauspicious.

Ridge Lakes

Ridge Lakes

lupine

Lassen Peak on right

The slope up from the saddle was too steep and slippery so I retreated to the lakes and went back up the other route. This was longer and harder but very rewarding. Here I actually climbed up through that nice mellow rock, though it lost a lot of luster up close, and of course it really isn't “soft.” It just looks soft from the distance. I also got to examine some of the remnant exposures of hard rock, the source of all that pink soil. Once on top I could see all the way to Mount Shasta, but I found the immediate terrain more interesting than the view. A fine hike, one I'd be happy to do again. Next time I would forsake the lupine field (unless it was flower season) and head straight up the second way, which appeared to offer an easier ascent to the ridge's high point. Such is the way that I develop hikes.  

After my hike I drove past the Brokeoff Mountain trailhead and saw the parking area was filled with cars. I have no idea if there were more cougar encounters that day. Probably not. Whatever I heard had presumably long fled the area.

For my first visit to Mount Lassen, see Lassen Volcanic National Park (Jul 2008)