First Volcano of the Summer

Lassen Peak is the southernmost of the string of volcanoes that I'll see this summer. It erupted fairly recently - hundreds of times between 1914 and 1917.

We can also see Mt. Shasta in the distance to the north.

We're here to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park, but first, we went through Subway Cave, a lava tube right near where we were parked at the junction of 44 and 89.

It's an amazingly smooth trek through the tube to steps leading out at the other end, then a trail back to the car.

The next day we were off to the park. This shot of Lassen Peak above Hat Creek has always been one of my favorites.

From there, the road climbed steadily and we got into more and more snow. This is the parking area for Lake Helen...

And this is the lake!

The colors were beautiful, though.

We had intended to hike to Bumpass Hell, shown here from a hike quite a few years ago. It's a mini Yellowstone!

Unfortunately, the trail was covered with snow and closed.

Nice scenery from the trailhead, though...

And we did get to see some thermal activity at the Sulphur Works.

So we went to another trail that goes to some waterfalls. Guess what! Closed too. But we decided to go anyway, since the trail didn't look too bad.

We thought it had been closed because of snow, but it turns out that it's because the trail is badly in need of repair. A lot of it has fallen off the side of the cliff.

So we didn't go all the way to the big waterfall, but did get to see a lot of smaller ones.