Our visit to Mount Lassen, the Cinder Cone and Bumpass Hell's bubbling mudpots. California Tourist Highlights! --->PLUS<--- Free Coloring Book Art

As a child my family climbed the Cinder Cone. It's a pile of volcanic ash. It was difficult to climb as we slid down while walking up. "Two steps forward one step back." The whole family went. Uncle Marc and Aunt Peg, Cousins Robin and Jill.

Cinder Cone Mount Lassen

We camped at the Lake and went to a campfire talk by Park Rangers. They told the story of the Indians of Lassen and the History of the Volcano exploding. Lava flowed as far away as Chico. The volcano once was a giant mountain in prehistoric times... They showed illustrations of how big it was in comparison to the seemingly tiny mountain that remains...

The highlight of my trip to Lassen was the Bubbling Mudpots of Bumpass Hell. It's a valley of hot springs that is bright orange and yellow. Extremely hot sulfur vents out of the volcano making lakes of hot bubbling mud. It was named for an early explorer, Mr Bumpass, who fell into a mudpot and died from the heat. There are sulfur springs right on the road but the best ones are an easy one mile hike away from the parking lot. The rangers built wooden boardwalks for tourists to go out over the mudpots safely.

Bumpass Hell at Mount Lassen Park

In the 1990s I went to The end of the road at Mount Lassen with some friends from AA. That's where people park when they want to climb the mountain. We walked around and looked at the view but did not climb the mountain. I took out my guitar and sang the song "Truckin'" to the hikers... It's special to sing at High Altitudes.

Read more of my autobiography at: http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html

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I remember that when we went backpacking we always went to the Ranger Station to get a fire permit. We told them where we were going and when we would be coming back. That way, if we didn't check back in, they would send a rescue team out to look for us.

It's entirely possible to fall down and break a leg in the back country and be unable to walk out. Plus, the rangers had local knowledge of what was interesting in their neighborhood. Waterfalls, good fishing, epic views... I always loved those USGS maps showing elevation and sometimes we would just walk to a hidden lake by navigation.  "It's got to be just on the other side of that pass so... let's go!" It was a reasonable way to hike above timberline. Not so practical in the woods. 

In the High Sierra, people would stack rocks on top of each other in order to mark trails. Above timber line, the ground is all granite and wearing a trail into the dirt just doesn't happen. We would walk to a stack of rocks, look for the next stack and walk there and then look for the next stack of rocks... and on and on... That way we were able to go backpacking using "Ducks" to navigate. Since it was impossible for rocks to stack themselves, we knew that people had gone there before and were marking the trail...

Big Brother is Watching You - Flying Eyeball
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