July 13th, 2013 we took a day road trip up to Lassen Volcanic National Park. We've wanted to go up there for a long time and finally decided to do it. We realized it wasn't as far away as we previously thought. And although one day wasn't enough time to see all there is to see, what we did get to see was fun and beautiful. Hopefully at some point we'll be able to come back and stay for a few days. I would love to go on more of the hikes and explore further into the park.
The main feature of the park is Lassen peak. It's the largest plug dome volcano in the world. The park is also one of the few area's in the world where you can find all four types of volcano(plug dome, shield, cinder cone and strato). It was kind of an awesome and humbling feeling realizing what we were walking on.
Other fascinating and really neat things to see in the park are the hydrothermal features. The fumaroles (steam and volcanic-gas vents), thumping mud pots, boiling pools, and steaming ground. They were really cool. And smelly! The sulfur is definitely not hiding anywhere. Realizing that all these are signs of active volcanism was also humbling. You couldn't help but respect the mountain.
Some of the overlooks and view areas were just breath taking. Living in California the first thing that most people think of is the coastline and the famous big cities. It's easy to forget that a large portion of our state consists of dramatic mountain landscape as well. It's just as wonderful to see as the ocean.
There aren't any glaciers in the park that I'm aware of but there are areas that have some snow year round. That was a fun little surprise for the boys. They had fun playing and climbing around in the mounds of snow. Kaeryn didn't really want to play in the snow so she and daddy walked up a nearby trail instead. It was fun to see how Jaden reacted to the snow. He seemed to enjoy following the boys around but he wasn't so sure about touching it. I think he just liked being outside and free to run around. When we were near the sulfur pools we kept him in the hiking backpack with daddy. But around here there was plenty of space for him to run around and explore.
After we were done playing in the snow and being watched by the eye of the mountain we decided to get back in the car and drive around more. We've talked about maybe coming up and having a camping trip here so we wanted to explore some of those possibilities. We found a picnic area that had a trail that followed a river. It was a beautiful area. I loved all the green and wild flowers. It was so pretty.
It was hard to come home. One day is never long enough. We definitely want to come back again. I can't wait!
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