Last week I went camping for a couple of nights in Lassen National Park with my girlfriend, Margo. We had an amazing time and got to hike to the top of a mountain, see some sulfur pits, jump in an alpine lake, and witness an absolute explosion of summer wild flowers.

Mount Lassen

Probably our favorite hike was walking along the Kings Creek. It was a relaxing and meandering four mile hike through a forest that was experiencing lots of regrowth from a recent burn. Since many of the trees had beened burned, lots of sunlight was getting through to the forest floor turning what would have been mostly pine needles and manzanita carpet into a meadow of yellow, purple, and white flowers.

The last time I had been to Lassen was in 2013 before the 2021 Dixie fire which burned a large portion of the park. Whenever I go camping in places that are recovering from a major fire I get a bit sad thinking the fire will have competely destroyed the wildlife and natural beauty of the place. Yet it seems that everytime I visit a burned area I am reminded that fire is just a natural part of a forest. The rebounding new growth from the after math of the fire never ceeses to amaze me.

Wildflowers

This was Margo’s first time visiting Lassen. She was very excited to go as she loves National Parks and has a stamp book meant for holding her collection of stamps from all the parks she’s been to. When we arrived the first thing we did before setting up our campsite at Summit Lake was to get a stamp from the visitor’s center.

When we got to our campsite we realized we had forgottten our tent poles! The bag with all the tent supplies had everything but the poles lying next to it. So we reclined the seats in the car and slept in there for the night. The next day after doing a big hike we drove into the nearest town, Red Bluff, and bought a Coleman tent at a Walmart Supercenter and decided to name our new tent Wally Su, which we love.

Campsite

After our two nights in Lassen our journey continued North (with a stop at thee amazing Dos Amigos Taqueria in Redding, CA) through Oregon to Newberry National Volcanic Monument.