Lassen Peak

I had eight days to get from Seattle to the Minneapolis airport to pick up M and I spent the first day and the first 629 miles heading south. The rationale should emerge over subsequent posts. This was certainly the longest day of the trip east.

I never actually saw the top of Lassen Peak, so the title is a little of a misrepresentation, but I got glimpses of its base and the weather away from the peak was very nice.

I got into Cave Campground in Lassen National Forest, just north of the National Park, around 8 PM and paid my $16 fee with a $20 bill. I woke very early, packed my wet tent (it poured for an hour or so during the night), then drove into the Park. I had the Park pretty much to myself - I saw only a couple of cars during the drive through. I had thought that if it was perfectly clear I might try the hike to the top - apparently snow levels this year make that reasonable - but it wasn't perfectly clear and I settled for a short stop at the trailhead parking lot.

Until 1980, Lassen held title to the largest historical eruption in the Cascades, exploding spectacularly on May 22nd, 1915 (almost exactly 100 years ago).  Much of the landscape is still recovering a century later and there are still plenty of signs of magmatic heat stewing below the surface.

Lassen is the southern most of the active Cascades, not coincidentally lying pretty much due east of Cape Mendocino and the southern end of the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

This is the first of roughly two dozen posts from this year's June road trip - I'm hoping to crank the others out over the next week or so.