Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen is the National Park that we almost had to miss.  When we first set the goal of seeing all the lower 48 NPs, we knew that weather would be a critical factor.  In the winter time, several parks shut down everything but one visitor center operating on limited hours.  Or they become almost inaccessible, especially to someone in a large RV.  The challenge we faced is that some of the parks with the most limited winter operations are on opposite ends of the country.  And since we have not yet solved the “space-time continuum” allowing instantaneous travel from coast to coast, we knew we were more than likely going to encounter at least one park in the middle of winter.  We made the planning decision to spend summer in the Northwest, which meant we got to see parks like Mesa Verde and Crater Lake on our first swing west.  This plan also gave us enough time to get back east and see Isle Royale and Acadia before they both got totally shut in with snow.  But, this unfortunately forced us to leave our visit to Lassen for the middle of winter. 

Lassen is a little known park tucked up in California a couple hours north of Sacramento.  Nearly everyone we have spoken with either has never heard of it or knows next to nothing about it.  I fully admit that when we started all this, I had never heard of it either.  I now know that during the winter, Lassen is famous for one thing – snow.  Lots of it.  They don’t measure snow here in inches; they measure it in feet.  As in just shy of 20 feet of snow last year at the lower elevations – much more than that at the higher elevations around Lassen Peak. 

Because of its location (and the snow in the winter-time), traffic to Lassen is pretty limited.   When we made it to the park – and I am happy to say we made it – there were only 10 other cars in the parking lot.  Half of these were folks out taking advantage of the “ski anywhere” policy the park enacts in winter time.  They had just wondered off in various directions to try the fresh powder.  The other half were folks like us who really wanted to see the park, even in the winter, and had decided to join up for a Ranger led snowshoe hike. 

Keep in mind that we had just recently done a snowshoe hike in Yosemite.  So we were feeling pretty confident in our abilities.  This hike was nothing like the one in Yosemite.  There, we cruised along on a few inches of packed snow and a well marked trail.  It would not have been an issue to just remove the snowshoes and hike along.  In Lassen, we were on four feet of powder.  Even with the snowshoes, you still had a tendency to sink about a foot.  If you took off the shoes and tried to hike, you feel in nearly to your waist and needed to be pulled out.  This hike was work.  And it was amazing!  We hiked over rivers where we could hear the water still running beneath us.  We hiked into valleys where it felt like we were inside a snow globe.  We hiked up hills among massive pines and firs.  We did not follow any trail, we just went.

We get asked all the time, “What is your favorite park?”  I’ve given up even trying to answer that question as so many of them are incredible beyond description.  What I am doing now is keeping track of parks I never knew about prior to this trip that I really would like to return to.  These are hidden gems with amazing features, beautiful scenery, plenty of backcountry and low visitation.  Lassen is in the top three (the other two being King’s Canyon and Great Basin).  I will definitely be coming back here!