50 Fun Facts About Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen Peak is the southernmost active volcano of which mountains?

The park sits in northeastern California near Redding and Susanville, in the Shasta Cascade section of the range.

Lassen Peak holds what world record among volcanoes?

It is a lava dome that pushed up through the flank of a vanished stratovolcano, probably reaching its full height in just a few years.

The park is one of the few places on Earth where all four types of volcano can be found; which are they?

Mount Harkness, Red Mountain, Prospect Peak and Raker Peak are the shield volcanoes, each topped by its own cinder cone.

How tall is Lassen Peak?

It has 14 permanent snowfields but no glaciers, and the road that skirts it is the highest in the whole range.

What subduction process supplies the heat for Lassen's volcanism?

The same subduction feeds the whole Cascade arc; nine seismometers relay data to the USGS in Menlo Park.

Which president designated Cinder Cone and Lassen Peak as separate national monuments in 1907?

The area had first been protected as the Lassen Peak Forest Preserve; the two monuments were merged into a national park in 1916.

On what date did the park's most powerful eruption occur, blasting ash 280 miles east?

The column rose over 30,000 feet within half an hour and could be seen from Eureka, 150 miles west; the flank it wrecked is now the Devastated Area.

Lassen Peak and which other volcano were the only two in the contiguous US to erupt in the 20th century?

Lassen's total 1914-17 output was 0.007 cubic miles, dwarfed by the 0.24 cubic miles of St. Helens in 1980.

In which year was Lassen Volcanic National Park established, while the peak was still erupting?

Congress acted on August 9, 1916, weeks before the National Park Service itself was created; steam blasts continued into 1921.

How many people were killed by the 1914-1921 eruptions?

Warnings got people out in time, though several houses along the creeks were destroyed by mudflows.

Which local businessman took the best-known photographs of Lassen Peak's eruptions?

He wrote that the June 14, 1914 eruption was fearfully grand; a museum at Manzanita Lake is dedicated to him.

Lassen Peak sits on the flank of which vanished stratovolcano, once about a thousand feet taller?

Also called Brokeoff Volcano, it was 11 to 15 miles across at the base and left a two-mile caldera when it collapsed or eroded away.

Roughly how long ago did Lassen Peak begin to rise as a lava dome?

Older estimates said 18,000; the dome shattered the rock above it into a talus apron and grew to full height in perhaps a few years.

What is the park's largest hydrothermal area, with boiling mudpots and fumaroles near 198 °F?

There are no true geysers in the park; temperatures up to 230 °F have been recorded in its thermal ground.

What happened to Kendall Vanhook Bumpass, the cowboy for whom the park's biggest thermal area is named?

He broke through the thin crust into scalding mud on a trip in the 1860s and the leg had to be amputated.

Which geothermal area between Lassen Peak and Brokeoff Mountain marks the vanished volcano's centre?

Little Hot Springs Valley and Diamond Point, an old lava conduit, are other thermal spots inside the caldera.

Tree-ring analysis has dated the last eruption of Cinder Cone to which year?

Settlers in 1850-51 reported fire thrown to a terrible height, but the science points to a single 17th-century event.

What are the Fantastic Lava Beds?

They dammed creeks to create two lakes, and a pioneer wagon route later passed right by them.

How high does Cinder Cone rise above the surrounding land?

Its ash spread over 30 square miles, and its summit crater has a double rim from two phases of one eruption.

Manzanita Lake was created about three centuries ago when what happened?

The Chaos Jumbles avalanche rode a cushion of compressed air at about 100 mph and flattened the forest in its path.

Why did the Park Service close the visitor center and lodgings at Manzanita Lake in 1974?

The USGS warned the buildings lay in the path of a slide if an earthquake or eruption struck; a campground and the Loomis museum remain.

The Chaos Crags, the largest of the young domes near Lassen Peak, began forming about how long ago?

Explosive pumice eruptions were followed by lava, and the unstable domes partly collapsed into pyroclastic flows.

Peter Lassen, the park's namesake, was a blacksmith from which country?

He guided emigrants past the peak to the Sacramento Valley in the 1830s and was murdered in Nevada in 1859 while prospecting for silver.

Which Native people believed the peak was full of fire and water and would one day blow apart?

A neighbouring people's name for the peak, Kohm Yah-mah-nee, was given to the visitor center that opened in 2008.

The park's Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center takes its name from which language's word for Lassen Peak?

It opened in 2008 on the site of the demolished Lassen Chalet, the last piece of a ski area that closed in 1992.

Which 1851 pioneer wagon route to the Sacramento Valley was cut through the park past Cinder Cone?

William Nobles found an easy link between the Applegate Trail in Nevada and the Lassen Trail; it replaced Lassen's own route.

Who was the first white man recorded to reach Lassen Peak, passing through in 1821?

The peak was named for the Danish guide only after the Gold Rush brought settlers flooding in.

How high does the Main Park Road climb near Lassen Peak?

That makes it the highest road in the whole range; 40 feet of snow can pile up near Lake Helen and drifts last into July.

Roughly how much snow falls at Lake Helen, at 8,200 feet, in a year?

That is probably the snowiest place in the state; the visitor center lower down still gets around 430 inches.

Why does the park get more precipitation than anywhere else in its range south of the Three Sisters?

The 29-mile park road was built between 1925 and 1931 and its Highway 89 section closes for the winter under the snowpack.

Which rare mammal has its largest known population, about 20 animals, in the park?

Black bears, cougars, pikas and white-headed woodpeckers share the forests.

What did state wildlife officials report inside the park in 2024 for the first time in modern history?

The pack likely split off from the Lassen Pack, itself descended from wolves that began recolonising the state from Oregon in late 2011.

Which 2021 wildfire, the largest in park history, burned about 69 percent of the park?

It entered near Juniper Lake on August 5, forced the evacuation of park headquarters and destroyed cabins; the scar of a 2012 fire slowed its advance.

What share of the area burned by the 2021 fire inside the park burned at high severity?

About 49 percent burned at low to moderate severity and 18 percent so lightly the landscape was left unchanged.

Where is the park's headquarters, evacuated during the 2021 fire?

The town lies just outside the southwest entrance; the park itself covers parts of Shasta, Lassen, Plumas and Tehama counties.

Which historic guest ranch at the head of Warner Valley, founded by trapper Edward Drake, sits inside Lassen?

Drake assembled about 400 acres around the hot springs; the ranch lost structures in the 2021 fire.

Which hot-spring features lie in Warner Valley on the southern edge of the Lassen Plateau?

Despite the name, Terminal Geyser is not a true geyser; the park has none.

How many vehicle entrances does the park have?

North and south on Highway 89, plus unpaved roads at Warner Valley, Juniper Lake and Butte Lake.

In which year did Congress designate the Lassen Volcanic Wilderness?

The Park Service manages it with minimal facilities and signage under the 1964 Wilderness Act.

What is Lassen Peak made of?

A 1,500-foot layer of glassy black dacite from an old Tehama eruption forms the columnar rock at the peak's base.

How does the Park Service estimate visitor numbers at Lassen?

Buses and other non-reportable vehicles are subtracted before the multiplication.

What threat level does the state volcano observatory assign to Lassen?

The USGS says it is almost certain the area will erupt again; climbers reported steam vents at the summit for decades after 1921.

How much old-growth forest does the park preserve?

It includes all the park's major forest types, from mixed conifer below 6,500 feet to red fir and then whitebark pine near the tree line.

A 1917 eruption of Lassen Peak was captured on film by whom, footage rediscovered and published in 2015?

Shot from Catfish Lake and originally silent, it gained sound effects from his grandson before the Shasta Historical Society released it.

Which Mexican governor granted Peter Lassen the vast Rancho Bosquejo after he became a Mexican citizen?

Born in Farum in 1800, he emigrated to Boston in 1830 and was later known in Spanish as Don Pedro Lassen.

Which two lakes were formed when Cinder Cone's lava flows dammed local creeks?

Butte Lake is the last fragment of a much larger lake that the lava filled in.

How long is the Main Park Road, built between 1925 and 1931?

It is the highest road in the Cascades; 40 ft of snow can pile up near Lake Helen and linger into July.

About how long ago did the cone of Mount Tehama collapse to form a two-mile-wide caldera?

One eruption from that episode laid down a 1,500-ft layer of glassy dacite where Lassen Peak now stands.

Which tree species dominates the forest belt between about 6,500 and 8,000 feet in the park?

Below 6,500 feet a mixed-conifer forest of ponderosa, Jeffrey and sugar pines and white fir takes over.

Roughly how much snow falls each year at the visitor center near the park's southwest entrance?

That is despite the site facing east; higher up at Lake Helen totals reach 600 to 700 inches.