As I traveled this fall, people I met would ask where I was heading. Whenever I mentioned Lassen in my list, I heard the same refrain from people who had already been there: “You’ll absolutely love it. It’s such a neat and wonderful place.” They were right. I do and it is.

I pulled in to Manzanita Lake Campground near the park’s north entrance in the afternoon of Thursday, September 15, and finally found a site that wasn’t occupied or reserved. I had learned at the gate that Manzanita is the only campground remaining open. Two at Summit Lakes had just closed so they could be winterized. Manzanita’s 179 sites, which sit in four loops among beautiful mature mixed conifers, will be open until snow closes them. Although the campground rarely fills and some sites are designated as first come, reservations are still a very good idea. It was completely filled the Friday and Saturday nights when I was there.

There’s a small store, a laundry, and welcome showers at the camp’s entrance. About 20 camper cabins are available through the concessioner, California Guest Services. At the lakeshore, kayaks and paddleboards are offered for rent. At about $80 a night, the camper cabins look like an affordable alternative for a family just starting to try their wings at camping. The store, laundry, showers, cabins and kayak operations all seem to be quite low-keyed and unobtrusive. If I’d had my granddaughters with me, I think I just might have rented a kayak. As it was, I was tempted but already far over budget for this trip, so I passed.

There’s a museum/visitor center located not far from the campground. A walk around Manzanita Lake is something not to be missed. Sunset views of Lassen Peak across the lake will have your camera clicking. Best of all, you’ll probably be nearly alone on the trail.

Two things that struck me right off on that first night were how laid back and quiet the campground seems to be and how few license plates from outside California are to be found there. I mentioned this to a neighboring camper and he grinned, “This place is one of California’s best kept secrets.” Many folks I talked with told me they have been coming to Lassen for as long as they can remember.

I can certainly understand why.

The trail leading to the summit of Lassen Peak is a main attraction of the park/Lee Dalton

Some parks are Look And See parks and others, like Lassen, are Get Out And Do parks. There are over 150 miles of hiking trails to explore. By noon, every trailhead parking lot I passed was overflowing. But at the same time, the park’s main road – and only road, for that matter – was surprisingly free of traffic. Visitation in 2015 totaled 468,092 and will probably increase some this year because it’s both the NPS Centennial and Lassen’s 100th birthday.

The trail to Lassen Peak was crowded every day I was there. It’s only 4.8 miles round trip, and it’s all vertical. Loose rock and cinders make it even more challenging. But the view from the top? Oh, my!

Certainly the most popular trail in the park heads out to Bumpass Hell. Bumpass Hell is the largest hydrothermal basin in the park where a collection of hot springs, steam vents, mudpots and fumaroles mimic Yellowstone. I had expected Lassen Volcanic Park to be far more volcanic than it is. I had envisioned a park filled with expansive thermal features more like Yellowstone. But the rest of the park more than makes up for that.

It Really Was Hell for Mr. Bumpass

Kendall Vanhook Bumpass was a crusty mountain explorer who discovered the basin in 1864. The next year, while guiding a newspaper editor from a nearby town, Bumpass cautioned everyone in the group to be careful of treacherous ground. A moment later, he stepped on a weak crust and plunged his leg into mud that was about 240 degrees Fahrenheit. The editor recounted it in his paper, saying: “. . . he plunged his leg into the boiling mud beneath, which clinging to his limb, burned him severely. If our guide had been a profane man I think he would have cursed a little; as it was, I think his silence was owing to his inability to do the subject justice.”

So much for any sympathy. One can only imagine the suffering he must have endured, because this was in a day when any rescue was up to him and his companions alone. It was a long way to anywhere – as is still the case today. An interpretive sign indicates that Bumpass apparently lost his leg as a result of his mishap.

A video primer of Bumpass Hell from Traveler Editor Kurt Repanshek's Visit In 2014

Lassen Becomes a Park

In 1883, Joseph Silas Diller, a pioneering geologist for the new U.S. Geological Survey began researching volcanism in the region. Geology was still a relatively new science in those days and Dillers’ forty years of work around Lassen pioneered scientific understanding of how volcanism shapes local geomorphology. Largely as a result of information published by Diller, many local people had become interested in trying to preserve the place.

By 1900, people living around Lassen were lobbying for creation of some kind of reserve. Finally, Teddy Roosevelt used the newly passed Antiquities Act to create Lassen Peak and Cinder Cones National Monuments on May 6, 1906.

Then came the eruptions of Lassen Peak in 1914 and 1915. Those events stirred national attention and on August 9, 1916, Congress acted almost unanimously to create Lassen Volcanic National Park. Of course, it was in that same month the National Park Service was established. The fact that this was also the first volcanic eruption in the history of the United States at the time probably helped a whole lot. There was great excitement as newspapers printed breathless accounts and newsreels in silent movie theaters took the eruption to almost every American.

Photos of the eruption by B.F. Loomis helped lead to establishment of Lassen Volcanic National Park/Lee Dalton

B. F. Loomis

No recounting of the Lassen story is complete without telling of Benjamin Franklin Loomis. B. F., as he was called, was a local businessman and amateur photographer. Within days of the first signs of eruptive activity on May 30, 1914, Loomis had joined a growing crowd of people from nearby communities who flocked to see what was happening. But he brought along his large camera and tripod and set up a camp northeast of the mountain. He was ready and waiting when the mountain had its first really major eruption in the morning of June 14. Working quickly to expose and change glass plates in his camera, Loomis captured six historic black and white photos of the mountain’s top exploding.

As would be the case 66 years later when Mt. St. Helens exploded, Loomis and other curious people were unknowingly risking their lives as they tried to see what was happening. Tales of their close calls are legion, but there’s not room to tell them here. Their stories and the photos Loomis took would become vital in convincing Congress to set aside this place as a Volcanic National Park.

While most of the other witnesses to Lassen’s eruptions seem to have faded back into their previous lives, Loomis continued to devote himself to the mountain and its new status as a park. Loomis and his wife owned land around Manzanita Lake. There they built a home for themselves and a museum for visitors. He even set up a seismic observatory to try to record earthquake data related to the mountain. He donated their land to the park on condition that he and his wife might live there until their lives ended.

Today their home is the ranger station and the museum is the Loomis Museum Visitor Center. You may look in upon the antiquated seismograph Loomis operated and see those six dramatic photos he took that June day. Then you may go fish in the lake or watch sunset on Mt. Lassen as it’s reflected in the lake’s blue water.

Lassen and the NPS

Today, most of the park lies in designated wilderness areas. There is essentially only one road in the park – the Mt. Lassen Highway that winds from north to south right through the middle of the park. This road, by the way, is one of few park roads I’ve seen lately that is in excellent condition. There are only three other places where roads enter the park, and these all dead-end shortly inside the park’s boundaries. A 17-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail wends its way through the middle of the park.

Winter sports are very popular here. Happily, with thousands of square miles of snowy forest surrounding the park, there is little pressure to open it to snowmobiles. Thus, winter activities inside Lassen are all human powered. There must be an atmosphere of quiet peace throughout these snow covered mountains.

Drought has hit Lassen, though. Snowpacks have been low for several years now, with only about 20 percent of normal falling last winter.

While much of the park’s storytelling serves to recall and explain what happened during those cataclysmic days in 1914 and ‘15, it’s also the story of nature’s healing and how all those processes played together to produce this place we enjoy today. It may be a volcanic national park, but it’s much more, too.

Bumpass Hell could just as easily fit into Yellowstone National Park/Lee Dalton

I was surprised – but not disappointed – at the somewhat limited extent of existing thermal activity. There are only four or five relatively small areas where evidence of the park’s fiery past remain active. I had expected it to be much more expansive. Sulphur Works and Bumpass Hell are the most easily accessible. Sulphur Works sits at roadside along the highway and Bumpass Hell is a fairly easy three mile round trip hike.

Driving the park highway is interesting. It’s 27 miles of steep grades, sharp curves, and sheer drops with virtually no shoulder. When the speed limit signs say 35, they mean it! But traffic is light. It was common to drive for several miles on an empty road before meeting any other vehicles – and that was on a busy weekend.

The only place I ran into crowds was as I returned from my early morning hike to Bumpass Hell. When I’d hit the trail at about 0800, I was nearly alone. When I reached the parking lot at noon, I was sharing the trail with crowds of other good people. Even the family of Indian Indians who were shocked when I gathered up and returned a banana peel grandmother had tossed into a small spruce tree, were good folks to share a trail with. They were just learning about a new culture. (I think I managed to get my littering message through, despite the language barrier. I gave them a gallon plastic bag from my pack and demonstrated how to use it to collect the multitude of water bottles and snack wrappers and banana peels they were carrying with them in a plastic grocery sack.) In fact, after finishing all the trails I hiked, the plastic sandwich/litter bag that’s always in my back left pocket had collected only three small pieces of tissue paper and one cigarette butt.

At the south end of the drive, you’ll find an almost brand new visitor center. Kohm Yah-mah-nee visitor center contains some fine interactive exhibits that don’t depend on electronic gimmickry. There’s also a very welcome snack shop in the building that was built entirely with funds from the Lassen Foundation and its donors.

Another feature that caught my interest was a set of audio message machines beside each wayside panel along the Devastated Area Trail. Push a button and solar powered recorders read the panel’s text and provide verbal descriptions of illustrations for visually impaired visitors. That’s an idea that needs to spread like wildfire around our parks.

Although I arrived just after the end of interpretive action outside the visitor centers, I was still impressed when I saw the variety of offerings listed in the park’s little newsletter. The newsletter is much smaller and not as fancy as some others, but it is very well written. Better yet, it doesn’t contain a lot of fluff. It provides visitors with a wealth of essential information about trails, campgrounds, facilities and even hints for traveling around outside the park. And, in addition to Junior Ranger activities, there’s also the Chipmunk Club with stickers for those too young to become Junior Rangers.

Things seem to be very expensive here. $10 for a standard bundle of firewood. $1.50 for a three-minute shower (sure does feel good, though). $3.21 for a gallon of gasoline. But this is California, where everything costs more than in normal places. Then, too, there’s a bit of a long distance from anywhere to haul products for sale. That’s true both inside and outside the parks.

A Salute To Those Who Deserve A Salute

Although it’s obviously heavily used, Manzanita Campground and its facilities are clean – even though they are showing their age in many ways. I guess the best way to describe it is to say they appear to be tired. Some bathroom fixtures are chipped and stained and one women’s accessible restroom has a sign on the door that says, “Lock Broken. Please Knock.” It looks like another chapter of the old story, too much to do and not enough people and dollars to do it with.

I had opportunities to thank two of the park’s maintenance workers. Those guys who do all the work for little of the credit. I’m sorry I didn’t get their names. One was a young lady at Kohm Yah-mah-nee visitor center. The other a dignified gentleman with silver hair who was collecting garbage at Manzanita. He told of how he and his wife decided to try for work in parks after a previous career. They found jobs. She in Lava Beds and he in Lassen. Since then, she has also landed a job in Lassen and he has been here for 12 seasons.

Only one of two camp hosts was here. He was one busy boy. End of season, so the other host had moved on. I noticed there were a number of unoccupied reserved sites and asked what happens when people who reserved a site fail to show up. He explained that they will be released to others after 24 hours. If there’s no reserved sign on the post, then it’s first come. I asked what was to prevent someone like me, who had picked a first come site, from having that site reserved out from under them. He said there are safeguards in place and daily communication with recreation dot gov to keep that from happening.

As I finish typing this, it’s Sunday afternoon. The campground is virtually empty. Lassen Peak is sleeping off in the distance. Manzanita lake is blue with a few fly fishermen floating around in it. Golden mantled ground squirrels are scurrying everywhere. Life is good among the ponderosa pines and Douglas firs that surround me.

Two things I can say for sure: Yes, this is a place you’ll love, and I’m gonna have to come back again and spend a lot more time on its trails.