Lassen Volcanic NP and area

Our initial plan for visiting this park was to stay at an RV park in Hat Creek CA. After we reviewed our plan we decided to stay at the McArthur CA Fairgrounds. Not a lot of amenities but a little more central location.
We visited Lassen Volcanic NP and did a few short hikes before lunch. After lunch we continued to drive to the south end of the park with stops at the trailhead to Lassen Peak. This is shown on the map as a 2.5 mile hike but it is close to 2000' vertical and the signs at the parking lot say to allow several hours and take lots of water. I didn't figure my boat shoes would make good hiking boots so we passed. I did walk up the trail a few hundred yards and it sure was clear that I was not acclimated to the altitude. The trail head is at about 8000' feet.

Our next stop, other than some view stops, was the Sulphur Works which are easily viewable from the sidewalk. There are other geothermal features in the park but we choose not to make those hikes. We continued on to the visitors center at the south end of the park. A nice long ride back.

We took a ride out to one of the local parks to see if we wanted to kayak there. After a dusty ride we arrived at the boat launch. Since the lakes are low and it has been hot there was a lot of alge in the launch area. We decided we didn't want to deal with that..

We took an afternoon to visit the Fort Cook Museum in Fall River Mills. This is quite an interesting free museum. There are many buildings from the area. On another day we went to McArthur-Burney Falls state park and took the hike around the falls. Beautiful. One of the things that isn't mentioned in this link is that the state of California did not know how to accept the gift from the McArthur decedents. It took years for the state to figure it out.

Since we missed Glass Mountain when we went to Diamond Lake from Tulelake we struck out, again without a map, but we did have some GPS coordinates from google maps. We took some back paved roads to CA89 and then off into the forest. Paved road all the way to Diamond Lake where we stopped for another look at the lake and boat launch. It was blowing pretty good and would have been a terrible kayak. On our way to the lake we passed a sign for Glass Mountain so we ignored the gps and started following signs. Always fun to be on dirt FS roads with no map and look for and hope you find signs at road junctions. We finally found the mountain and had our lunch. This is quite amazing. Walking on glass, Obsidian, takes a little care. Actually it is not the walking but the falling or  reaching for a handhold that can get you in trouble.

I choose the loooooong way back to McArthur. Maybe I should have stuck to the dirt roads.