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| The visitor's center |
A new stop on our revised itinerary turned out to be a big surprise; Lassen Volcanic National Park. The drive from Yosemite to Crater Lake, OR would be a huge one, so this sounded like a good stop in between. As we ascended to higher and higher elevations, more and more snowed piled up alongside of the road. We approached the park entrance to find that one of the entry booths was entirely snowed in, probably 10 feet of white stuff covering the whole thing. The other booth was still open so in we went! As we drove along, there were walls of snow on either side of us, twice as high as the van. It all caught us completely off guard.
The park itself used to be a volcano millennia ago, a massive one spanning 11 miles. After its eruption and extinction, it created a valley with magma streams underneath that heat sulfur vents, geysers, and bubbling mud pots around the park. You knew you were close to anything of interest by the smell of rotten eggs. A lot of the park was closed due to the massive amounts of snow (the park averages between 30-45 feet but can get up to 60 feet in one season!) so we saw the sights and went to find a campsite elsewhere. On the way out, a busload of young teenagers were having a snowball fight across the road. We became moving targets as we ran back to the van, so we thought ‘why should they get to have all the fun?’ Using the lid of the cooler as our ammunition cache and arming ourselves with a full payload, we drove by our assailants, opened the sliding door, and let fly a barrage of cold revenge. All the kids were loving it, returning fire as we looped back around and sped away to find ourselves a new place to sleep for the night.
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| Bubbling mud pot |
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| Vents |
scanlon would've loved this.
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