Overland Camping Roadtrip Blog
Travel Day 47:
Total km driven to date: 8876km
Total km walked to date: 359.33km
Plumas Nat Forest – Lassen Nat Forest
171km drive
10.29km on foot
The highlight of our day was Lassen Volcanic National Park, it is said to be like a “little Yellowstone” which is good since I missed the majority of the volcanic stuff in Yellowstone. From our campsite it was about an hour and a half drive, deeper and deeper into the forests of the northern Sierras, in some ways the forests are a lot like home, there is finally some undergrowth under the massive trees unlike further south where it is barren on the forest floor. It is much more green up here with lots of little plants and even green grass growing. We passed by the big Lake Almanor which was busy but nothing like Tahoe to the south. Hwy-89 wound into the forest with no real civilization to speak of for miles until we got to the National Park. Once again we were waved through because of our annual pass, saved us another $20. When coming from the south you start high in the mountains entering the park and follow the road along some steep windy turns with huge drops on the one side. We stopped in the parking lot near Bumpbass Hell (that is really the name!) and went for a 6km hike along the mountain side and down to the boiling mudpots and steaming vents with water up to 125*C. It was a neat hike, very steep in some places with blue wild flowers growing along the slopes. As you get close to “hell” you can smell the heavy stink of rotten egg sulphur, at times overpowering. Some of the ponds are a vibrant blue color, some have a skim of black on top that is Pyrite or fools gold. Interesting place, worth the hike. After that we headed back to the truck and continued on the journey through the park. From the high point at Bumpbass of 8200ft the road slowly windows down over 40km to the north entrance to the park. There was more hiking trails and a few lakes but nothing too exciting. Once we left the park it is only 70km to Redding and all downhill into civilization so we stopped right after the sign for the national park while we were still in the Lassen National Forest and found a beautiful spot in the forest amongst the trees for the night. The thunder rolled in for a bit and even had some rain for a few hours. We went for another walk before dinner to check out the forest but looking so much like home there wasn’t much to photograph.
