Nasty Austrian🇦🇹 Conquers da 🇺🇸 & 🇨🇦

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BO thanks again for your awesome photo's and ride report.  For us here in SA and myself that will not see the USA in the near future, enjoys your reports and the beautiful landscapes.  Please keep it up. :thumleft: :sip:

What's worst is the fact that others like myself that sits in Cape Town can not do anything to assist...

Thanks, I enjoy reading reports and seeing pics of your amazingly beautiful country as well.

I understand the feelings you're experiencing, it's not fun. 

 

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After getting my belly full on spare ribs, beans n slaw, I continued further through Northern California.  The riding was heavenly.  I arrived at Lassen Volcanic National Park, not knowing what to expect, I didn't know the place existed until I saw it playing with google maps.  I'm thankful to have visited, it's a uniquely beautiful place with boiling mud, thermal pools, minerals flowing from the ground everywhere. 

 

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Lassen Volcanic National Park is an American national park in northeastern California. The dominant feature of the park is Lassen Peak, the largest plug dome volcano in the world and the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range.  Lassen Volcanic National Park is one of the few areas in the world where all four types of volcano can be found—plug dome, shield, cinder cone, and stratovolcano.

The source of heat for the volcanism in the Lassen area is subduction of the Gorda Plate diving below the North American Plate off the Northern California coast.  The area surrounding Lassen Peak is still active with boiling mud pots, fumaroles, and hot springs.

Lassen Volcanic National Park started as two separate national monuments designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907: Cinder Cone National Monument and Lassen Peak National Monument.  Starting in May 1914 and lasting until 1917, a series of minor to major eruptions occurred on Lassen. Because of the eruptive activity and the area's stark volcanic beauty, Lassen Peak, Cinder Cone, and the area surrounding were established as a National Park on August 9, 1916.

 

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Native Americans have inhabited the area since long before white settlers first saw Lassen. The natives knew that the peak was full of fire and water and thought it would one day blow itself apart.

European immigrants in the mid-19th century used Lassen Peak as a landmark on their trek to the fertile Sacramento Valley. One of the guides to these immigrants was a Danish blacksmith named Peter Lassen, who settled in Northern California in the 1830s. Lassen Peak was named after him.  Nobles Emigrant Trail was later cut through the park area and passed Cinder Cone and the Fantastic Lava Beds.

Inconsistent newspaper accounts reported by witnesses from 1850 to 1851 described seeing "fire thrown to a terrible height" and "burning lava running down the sides" in the area of Cinder Cone.  As late as 1859, a witness reported seeing fire in the sky from a distance, attributing it to an eruption. Early geologists and volcanologists who studied the Cinder Cone concluded the last eruption occurred between 1675 and 1700. After the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) began reassessing the potential risk of other active volcanic areas in the Cascade Range. Further study of Cinder Cone estimated the last eruption occurred between 1630 and 1670. Recent tree-ring analysis has placed the date at 1666.

 

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The Lassen area was first protected by being designated as the Lassen Peak Forest Preserve. Lassen Peak and Cinder Cone were later declared as U.S. National Monuments in May 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Starting in May 1914 and lasting until 1921, a series of minor to major eruptions occurred on Lassen. These events created a new crater, and released lava and a great deal of ash. Fortunately, because of warnings, no one was killed, but several houses along area creeks were destroyed. Because of the eruptive activity, which continued through 1917, and the area's stark volcanic beauty, Lassen Peak, Cinder Cone and the area surrounding were declared a National Park on August 9, 1916.

The 29-mile (47 km) Main Park Road was constructed between 1925 and 1931, just 10 years after Lassen Peak erupted. Near Lassen Peak the road reaches 8,512 feet (2,594 m), making it the highest road in the Cascade Mountains. It is not unusual for 40 ft (12 m) of snow to accumulate on the road near Lake Helen and for patches of snow to last into July.

In October 1972, a portion of the park was designated as Lassen Volcanic Wilderness by the US Congress (Public Law 92-511). The National Park Service seeks to manage the wilderness in keeping with the Wilderness Act of 1964, with minimal developed facilities, signage, and trails. The management plan of 2003 adds that, "The wilderness experience offers a moderate to high degree of challenge and adventure."

 

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In 1974, the National Park Service took the advice of the USGS and closed the visitor center and accommodations at Manzanita Lake. The Survey stated that these buildings would be in the way of a rockslide from Chaos Crags if an earthquake or eruption occurred in the area.  An aging seismograph station remains. However, a campground, store, and museum dedicated to Benjamin F. Loomis stands near Manzanita Lake, welcoming visitors who enter the park from the northwest entrance.

After the Mount St. Helens eruption, the USGS intensified its monitoring of active and potentially active volcanoes in the Cascade Range. Monitoring of the Lassen area includes periodic measurements of ground deformation and volcanic-gas emissions and continuous transmission of data from a local network of nine seismometers to USGS offices in Menlo Park, California. Should indications of a significant increase in volcanic activity be detected, the USGS will immediately deploy scientists and specially designed portable monitoring instruments to evaluate the threat. In addition, the National Park Service (NPS) has developed an emergency response plan that would be activated to protect the public in the event of an impending eruption.

The Lassen Chalet, a large lodge with concession facilities, was located near the southwest entrance, but was demolished in 2005. A new full-service visitor center in the same location opened to the public in 2008. The Lassen Ski Area was located near the lodge; it ceased operation in 1992 and all infrastructure has been removed.

 

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I wasn't comfortable getting any closer to this boiling mud pot, the smell was pungent, a combo of sulphur, rotten seafood, and hot garbage.

 

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The park is located near the northern end of the Sacramento Valley, near the cities of Redding and Susanville. It is located in portions of Shasta, Lassen, Plumas, and Tehama counties.

The western part of the park features great lava pinnacles (huge mountains created by lava flows), jagged craters, and steaming sulfur vents. It is cut by glaciated canyons and is dotted and threaded by lakes and rushing clear streams.

The eastern part of the park is a vast lava plateau more than one mile (1.6 km) above sea level. Here, small cinder cones are found. (Fairfield Peak, Hat Mountain, and Crater Butte).  Forested with pine and fir, this area is studded with small lakes, but it boasts few streams. Warner Valley, marking the southern edge of the Lassen Plateau, features hot spring areas (Boiling Springs Lake, Devils Kitchen, and Terminal Geyser).  This forested, steep valley also has large meadows that have wildflowers in spring.

 

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The smell rising from this area would burn your nose hair!

 

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Lassen Peak is made of dacite, an igneous rock, and is one of the world's largest plug dome volcanoes. It is also the southernmost non-extinct volcano of the Cascade Range (specifically, the Shasta Cascade part of the range). The 10,457-foot (3,187 m) tall volcano sits on the north-east flank of the remains of Mount Tehama, a stratovolcano that was a thousand feet (305 m) higher than Lassen and 11 to 15 miles (18 to 24 km) wide at its base.  After emptying its throat and partially doing the same to its magma chamber in a series of eruptions, Tehama either collapsed into itself and formed a two-mile (3.2 km) wide caldera in the late Pleistocene or was simply eroded away with the help of acidic vapors that loosened and broke the rock, which was later carried away by glaciers.


Lassen Peak in the distance.

 

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Sulphur Works is a geothermal area in between Lassen Peak and Brokeoff Mountain that is thought to mark an area near the center of Tehama's now-gone cone. Other geothermal areas in the caldera are Little Hot Springs Valley, Diamond Point (an old lava conduit), and Bumpass Hell (see Geothermal areas in Lassen Volcanic National Park).

The magma that fuels the volcanoes in the park is derived from subduction off the coast of Northern California. Cinder Cone and the Fantastic Lava Beds, located about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Lassen Peak, is a cinder cone volcano and associated lava flow field that last erupted about 1650. It created a series of basaltic andesite to andesite lava flows known as the Fantastic Lava Beds.

There are four shield volcanoes in the park; Mount Harkness (southwest corner of the park), Red Mountain (at south-central boundary), Prospect Peak (in northeast corner), and Raker Peak (north of Lassen Peak). All of these volcanoes are 7,000–8,400 feet (2,133–2,560 m) above sea level and each is topped by a cinder cone volcano.

During ice ages, glaciers have modified and helped to erode the older volcanoes in the park. The center of snow accumulation and therefore ice radiation was Lassen Peak, Red Mountain, and Raker Peak. These volcanoes thus show more glacial scarring than other volcanoes in the park.

Despite not having any glaciers currently, Lassen Peak does have 14 permanent snowfields.

 

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The park is accessible via State Routes 89 and 44. SR 89 passes north-south through the park, beginning at SR 36 to the south and ending at SR 44 to the north. SR 89 passes immediately adjacent to the base of Lassen Peak. There are five vehicle entrances to the park: the north and south entrances on SR 89; and unpaved roads entering at Drakesbad and Juniper Lake in the south, and at Butte Lake in the northeast. The park can also be accessed by trails leading in from the Caribou Wilderness to the east, as well as the Pacific Crest Trail, and two smaller trails leading in from Willow Lake and Little Willow Lake to the south.

 

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According to the Köppen climate classification system, Lassen Volcanic National Park has a Mediterranean-influenced warm-summer Humid continental climate (Dsb). According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the Plant Hardiness zone at Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center at 6,736 ft (2,053 m) elevation is 6b with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of −0.2 °F (−17.9 °C).

Since the entire park is located at medium to high elevations, the park generally has cool-cold winters and warm summers below 7,500 feet (2,286 m). Above this elevation, the climate is harsh and cold, with cool summer temperatures. Precipitation within the park is high to very high due to a lack of a rain shadow from the Coast Ranges. The park gets more precipitation than anywhere else in the Cascades south of the Three Sisters. Snowfall at the new visitor center near the southwest entrance at 6,700 feet (2,040 m) is around 430 inches (1,090 cm) despite facing east. Up around Lake Helen, at 8,200 feet (2,499 m) the snowfall is around 600–700 inches (1,520–1,780 cm), making it probably the snowiest place in California. In addition, Lake Helen gets more average snow accumulation than any other recording station located near a volcano in the Cascade range, with a maximum of 178 inches (450 cm).  Snowbanks persist year-round.

 

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According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. Potential natural vegetation Types, Lassen Volcanic National Park has a Red Fir, aka Abies magnifica potential vegetation type with a California Conifer Forest potential vegetation form.

Lying at the northern end of the Sierra Nevada forests ecoregion, Lassen Volcanic National Park preserves a landscape nearly as it existed before Euro-American settlement: its 27,130 acres (10,980 ha) of old growth include all of its major forest types.

At elevations below 6,500 feet the dominant vegetation community is the mixed conifer forest. Ponderosa and Jeffrey Pines, Sugar Pine, and White Fir form the forest canopy for this rich community that also includes species of manzanita, gooseberry, and ceanothus. Common wildflowers include iris, spotted coralroot, pyrola, violets, and lupin.

 

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