~Lassen Volcanic National Park~

We had such a great day today!    It started off with this still morning and some early fishing.

 Later we visited Lassen Volcanic National Park.  We were so excited to see this park as we had never seen anything like this before in our travels .......and the boys are learning about the earth's crust, volcano's, rocks etc....in science so this was quite the field trip!

 We started our day with a visit to the Visitor Centre where we watched a 20 minute movie about the park.   Then we started driving around with stops along the way.    This is Sulphur Works where we got to see our first look at bubbling mudpots, steaming fumaroles and boiling water.   This stop is right on the side of the road and the ranger told us that the road will have to be moved in the near future as the mudpots are getting too close!

This really was unbelievable - boiling mud!!   And....oh so smelly!!!!

 This is Lassen Peak - it is one of the world's largest plug dome volcanoes and is at 10,457 ft.  It erupted in 1914 and then for 3 years had sporadic volcanic outbursts.  In 1915 the peak blew a huge mushroom shaped cloud of ash 30 000 feet into the air.  This altered the surrounding area profoundly!

 There are several beautiful lakes throughout the park.  This is Emerald Lake.

 Our next stop was Bumpass Hell Trail.  This 5km hike goes over rocky terrain and then drops into an active hydrothermal basin.

This is the first view we had of the basin. Actually we smelled it before we saw it :)

Once we arrived at the hydrothermal area we had to walk on the boardwalk.   This area has boiling mud and hissing blowholes. There are signs everywhere saying to stay on the boardwalk as the hiding pools are acidic boiling water.

 

It really was unbelievable to see.

 The smell was starting to get to Brad.

The hot steam was actually going right across the boardwalk.

 This hike was at 9000 ft so we had to take a quick stop to catch our breath.

 One of the other stops was the Devastated Area.  This showed all these giant rocks that came down the mountain after the eruption.

 When we arrived back at the rv park it was back to fishing!    Shae and Brad had fun catching this crawfish.

Not enough for 7 of us for dinner, so back he went into the river!

What a great day!