Lassen Volcanic National Park: America's Least Visited National Park

Chris Veldhuis
Jan 27, 2015
2 min read

It is so unbelievably quiet out there in Lassen Volcanic National Park. We really felt like we had this enormous stretch of wonderfully weird wilderness completely to ourselves. Such a privilege! It was a chilly morning as most of the park is quite high and from the campsite near the park's border we decided to drive to the trail through Bumpass Hell.

The road took us around Mount Lassen, a volcano that had exploded barely a hundred years ago and now patiently waiting for his next blast. The eruption left its traces on the landscape, enormous rocks at unlikely places and the top of the volcano missing. From Cinder Cone, a volcano we visited later that day, we could clearly see how lava had left a trail of destruction through the forests in the valley.

We also had Bumpass Hell to ourselves, such a contrast to a place like Yosemite, which is of course unbelievably beautiful, but feels more like a museum. Here we could admire all wonderful things at our own pace and with our own thoughts. Here we could pretend to be the discoverers of this place. Around us were boiling pools and mudpots, sizzling fumaroles. Acid had colored the rocks a bright yellow and orange. A wooden boardwalk runs straight through all of this craziness.

Later that day we drove off to the east entrance, to climb Cinder Cone. We encountered dozens of school children climbing our Volcano for a school excursion. Californian children are so lucky to have these kinds of wildernesses right around the corner, though some of them didn't seem to realize this anymore. Exhausted kids came walking by as we found our way to the volcano. We understood why as soon as we started to climb.

Cinder Cone is an enormous pile of little lava stones. As everyone else was running down we slowly progressed. Two plump women were stranded halfway to the top. "I am not made for this. This is not at all healthy for me", one said. A young boy came running down and told me that it was all worth it once we would reach the top. "It's awesome", he said. He was right!