June 27th Lassen Volcanic National Park

June 27th Lassen Volcanic National Park

Today we are driving to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Just hearing the name “volcanic” made me not want to go. I’ve seen volcanic rock and so on and I thought “what’s the big deal?” Little did I know, it is some of the prettiest mountains I have seen in a long time. First, the smoke here is a lot less than anywhere else that we have gone. So just being able to see in true color makes it beautiful. Second, the ground cover is beautiful wildflowers. It looks like spring here. It is very postcard like. There are bright green lush meadows that have winding streams with deer grazing. It harkens one back to the exquisite acquisition of the long battled and fought for master sword which lay in the holy and isolated meadow of Hyrule…the warriors quest. There is still a little snow here but the air is warm so it throws you off a little bit. There are lakes up in these mountains that have emerald green water that is clear all the way down to the bottom. The pine scent is intoxicating and smells so sweet.

Then, there’s the sulfur. That doesn’t smell so sweet. There are only in a few spots but it doesn’t take away the beauty of this place. We hiked to a place called “Bumpass Hell” and it had a huge area with all the sulfur vents and boiling mud and water. It was the coolest thing to see. And a little bit scary because the air steaming out of the ground is about 320 degrees. There are a couple of plants that love to grow on the edge of these pits and they are gorgeous! The grass around them is called “ bog laurel” and the flowers are “forest heather”-I think that is what they are anyway. It is such a stark contrast to the different shades of gold and yellow from the pits. We still haven’t seen any bears, but we are still on the look out.

*One question for my uncle Jim: there is a bird here that has a silver/gray body (Aaron thinks that it had a solid black body and looked like fancy crows), black wings with a white feathers on the end and a white strip on the tail feathers. What is this bird? It was making some crazy mating sounds that cracked us up.