Day 1: Mt. Lassen

Actually, on day 0 we drove from the bay area up to Redding and checked into our hotel there.  The drive took about 4 1/2 hours from our house.  I have to say, although we didn't spend very much time in the city, it sure doesn't seem like there's much to do in Redding.  But as far as I know it's the closest reasonable-sized town from which to visit Lassen.  And at least the "Hilltop" area has some decent restaurants, if not much else (other than a huge strip mall area).

So, on our first day we made the ~1 hour drive to Lassen from Redding.  We went to Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is contained within the much larger Lassen National Forest.  (Click for info.)  Some quick background: Mt. Lassen is part of the Cascades mountain range, a chain of volcanoes that includes Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Rainier.  Mt. Lassen experienced a major eruption in 1914, two years after which the area was declared a national park.

Here are some pictures of Manzanita Lake, just inside the northwest entrance to the park:

Below are a visitor and a resident we spotted at a picnic area.  We lucked out, we were able to get sandwiches for lunch at a snack bar/park store in the middle of Lassen, and we found out that the store was closing for the winter 3 days after we were there.

And here are some pictures of the peak (10,457 feet) from the park road:

This is a boulder that was expelled from the volcano and landed here, many miles away:

More random scenery:

The pictures below were taken from the parking lot at the base of the peak.  There's a trail that climbs the last ~2,000 feet to the peak that apparently anyone who is in good physical shape and properly equipped (good clothes and shoes, and obviously food and water) can do in about 5 hours.  The trail averages 15% grade... (Isako says, if you have visited our house, the driveway leading to our house is 11% grade...) maybe next time... ;-)  The trail disappears off to the right of the pictures, and then comes up to the peak along the ridge you see on the right.  We could actually see people on the ridge (very tiny dots), but they were too small to show up in these pictures.