Manzanita Lake is a popular destination for hiking, boating, fishing, wildlife viewing, and more / NPS
Manzanita Lake is a jewel in the northwest corner of Lassen Volcanic National Park. It's one of the park's most heavily visited areas and boasts the park's largest campground. In the winter, it's generally a quiet place, with snowshoers and nordic skiers strapping on equipment in the parking lots. In the summer, however, it's busy. The roads get congested easily and the historic visitor center and store are quickly overwhelmed.
Beginning in 2022, the National Park Service began planning to improve the visitor experience in the Manzanita Lake area. The idea was to rehabilitate old structures where possible and build new where necessary. The Park Service wanted to add more trails to the area to improve recreational opportunities (sorely needed), and redesign parking areas and the park's entrance road to lessen the formidable traffic congestion on busy days. The Park Service issued an Environmental Assessment, consulted with tribes and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and sought public input.
On Monday, park officials announced a Finding Of No Significant Impact for the Manzanita Lake Development Plans. Under the adopted plan, the Park Service intends to:
- Improve the facilities at Lassen Crossroads by providing an electric vehicle charging station for visitor use and a vault toilet with year-round access. The trailhead for the Nobles Emigrant Trail would be formalized at the Lassen Crossroads parking lot, and a new unpaved trail would be constructed to connect the trailhead to the existing trail.
- Modify the entrance station to allow for two inbound lanes, with one being a passholder lane to alleviate waiting times, and one outbound lane.
- Improve parking by expanding to the east of the main parking area, where cabins and parking areas were previously removed. The parking lot would accommodate approximately 40 vehicles and would be approximately 22,000 square feet and paved. The parking lot would have up to eight electric vehicle charging stations, one double vault toilet, and picnic tables and serve as the trailhead for the Chaos Crags Trail. The parking lot would provide more opportunities for larger RVs, buses, and trailers to park and prevent off-road parking that currently occurs along park roads. This parking would be walking distance to both Loomis Plaza and Manzanita Lake.
- Build a roughly 4,000-foot-long path from the parking area to Loomis Plaza, the day use area and boat launch, camper store, amphitheater, campground, and night sky program area.
- Create a formal interpretation area that could also be used for tribal interpretation in the Loomis Plaza, with paving and a temporary shade structure where informal interpretation is already occurring. Other opportunities would be provided for visitors, including picnic tables, water filling stations, an improved accessible route to the Loomis Residence, an outdoor recreation access route (approximately 100 feet long by 5 feet wide) to a clearing by Manzanita Creek behind the Loomis residence, and the interpretation of the seismograph building.
- Replace the existing boat launch with a prefabricated accessible boat launch to better meet NPS character and aesthetics.
- Modify the existing dam and associated dike to bring them up to current standards.
- Retrofit Loop A of the campground to lengthen campsite parking spurs and expand vehicle turning radii to accommodate larger (45-foot) RVs. Up to 12,000 square feet of new pavement would be needed to modify the Loop A road and parking spurs. Additionally, Loop D would remain a tent-only loop to help disperse and separate camping uses throughout the campground.
The Park Service has determined that implementation of the development concept plan is not likely to result in significant impacts on the human or natural environment. Therefore, an Environmental Impact Statement will not be prepared. The plan/EA and FONSI have been finalized and are available for viewing online at the NPS Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) website: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/Manzanitalakedcp.
