Given that it is only a few hours drive from San Francisco, you would think that Lassen Volcanic National Park would be a crowded place, but it's not. It may be one of the least visited National Parks in the USA. Which is too bad, it's a very nice place. This is a view of Lassen Peak seen from Manzanita Lake.




My brother Patrick and my friend Forrest and I hiked around for a couple of days and it found it clean and undisturbed. Mount Lassen is a volcano (last eruptions occuring in the 1914 to 1921 years) and there is still geothermal activity, the largest geothermal feature being a place called Bumpass Hell.












It's not what I would consider a game rich park, but we saw deer, marmottes and the usual squirrels and chipmunks.





The main feature of course is Lassen Peak, and it's a little bit of a hike to get to the top, elevation 10,457 feet. The 360° view makes it worth the trouble. Mount Shasta is 100 miles away but you see it clearly. Lassen gets up to 25 meters of snow on good years making it the region in California with the highest snowfall.




The thick brown haze is from the fires still raging in Northern California. This is what the top of this particular volcano looks like:




If I can wheeze my way to the top of this mountain then you probably can too. That is the town of Chester and Lake Almaron in the distance.





We happened to go on the 100 year anniversary of the last big eruption. Here's a link for more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassen_Peak

Me and my little brother Pat on the Bumpass Hell Trail. OK, he's 61 years old, but I still call him my little brother. Thanks to Forrest for taking this picture.




All photographs with a Nikon D810 with either a 28mm lens or an 85mm lens. I don't use my zoom lenses much anymore. I think the difference in image quality shows (that's how I lie to myself when I buy another lens), even on downsized-for-the-web thumbnails like these.

Before setting out on our road trip (which also including rafting the Upper Klamath river) we stopped at Mount Diablo near my brother's house. The place is crawling with tarantulas.






They'll crawl right up your leg if you let them.





Here's one enjoying the view, San Francisco Bay in the distance:

Stunning photos, as usual, Wink. Lassen is indeed a well-kept secret. Did you have time for Crater Lake? Lots of steelhead-size trout to be caught on a fly off Wizard Island.

While I was huffing and puffing up the trail to the peak, Forrest was fly fishing Hat Creek. He caught some small trout but I didn't fish and don't know how. We didn't make it to Crater Lake.

All the ins&outs of firearms, projectiles, powders & ballistics in general , of necessity to a hunter & you don't know how to fish...............sacrilege.
you don't know what you are missing , fishing has all the hunting skills of hunting with firearms , but the 'takedown' is more visceral.

Make the effort & get forrest to show you the basic skills./
OK, so you might have to swallow a teensy bit of pride in getting some tutoring..........suck it up & do it .........its very addictive when the quarry can fight back.

I'm ready to learn, but fly fishing in the Paris area just doesn't get me excited. Maybe there's a local group of fanatics to help get me started.

We actually stopped in a fly fishing store in Redding, just to look. I'll probably wait until a good wilderness holiday lends itself to including fly fishing for a beginner.