We were browsing through the blog and realized we forgot to post about Lassen Volcanic National Park!  This was our last stop before Redding and we were getting tired.  Lassen is one of the great surprises of this trip.  Neither of us had ever heard of this amazing place until we began our trip planning.  This park is only 45 minute from our friend’s house, so we knew for sure we would make it here.  As it turned out, we camped here for two nights.

Interesting things that happened in Lassen are, first,  we ended up hiking Lassen Peak with the crew that films and hosts “Rock Your Park!”  This group is a bunch of folks who are sponsored by Subaru and make Television Episodes meant to turn kids and families on to the National Parks!  How timely!  We spent some time swapping stories of our National Park Adventures and being influenced in our itinerary.  We had not planned to go to Death Valley until we met these folks and heard their ravings.  We have not yet checked the show out, but will soon when we rest a few days in Park City, UT with a friend.  I believe they can be found on NETFLIX.  The above picture is from Lassen Peak.  We climbed to over 10,000 feet and the winds were fantastic.  It was difficult to keep our balance at times.  It might have been our most difficult hike of the trip.  We found snow!

 

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Second interesting thing about Lassen is that we found ourselves back in an intense “Bear Aware” environment.  We kicked up a conversation with a Park Ranger about this and learned that they had not many bears there until this year.  Apparently a family who was camping in the NP  early in the season, was purchasing a daily rotisserie chicken and setting it out to draw the wildlife.  The bears came and since were reluctant to leave.  The family unfortunately was fined heavily and expelled from Lassen for sure but I believe all of the National Parks.  Don’t do it!

Lassen was created as the result of a volcanic eruption and a massive mudslide.  This is so visibly evident to the naked eye that it is beautiful and terrible at the same time.  It was so easy to imagine the terror to the local people as this was happening!  We could see the route that the mud slid at a ferocious speed as it ripped away an entire forest and leveled the side of a mountain!