Unveiling the mystery of Cinder Cone
From the rim of the Cinder Cone, you can see inside the collapsed center of the caldera of this mini volcano.
Ringing the cone are miles of volcanic flows and crags from its eruption more than 350 years ago. Beyond are two gorgeous lakes. On the horizon, 10,457-foot Lassen Peak — which blew its top in 1915 — rises into the sky a little more than 10 miles away.
The rim of the Cinder Cone provides one of the most unique views in America. Amid the ongoing eruptions of Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii, visitors and vacationers to Lassen Volcanic National Park can discover that Northern California has its own Land of Smoke.
Lassen spans a swath of 106,000 acres, northeast of Red Bluff (Tehama County), and is accessible by Highways 44 and 89, and from a few side roads to its more remote areas. Lassen gets roughly 10 percent of the traffic that Yosemite does and, as a result, you can get yourself a campsite late in the game, such as this weekend, for instance.
The Butte Lake Campground, near the trailhead for the Cinder Cone, is scheduled to open Friday. The more remote Warner Valley Campground also is set to open Friday. Manzanita Lake Camp and its tent and RV sites, and park model cabins, located near the entrance station out of Old Station, opened this spring, and Southwest Walk-In is open year-round.
On the Lassen Park Highway, the Volcano Adventure Camp (formerly Crags) opens June 16, and the two campgrounds at Summit Lake are scheduled to open June 29. The campground at Juniper Lake — the most remote area of the park you can reach by vehicle — also opens June 29.
Into the Cinder Cone
The Cinder Cone, best seen looking down from the adjacent Prospect Peak Trail, looks like a crater on the moon. It rises, nearly conical, with a large open oval at its center.
It’s a 4-mile round trip — with an 800-foot climb on the way up — to hike to the rim and back. It’s short enough that those affected by the altitude (or out-of-shape-itude) can stop as often as necessary, catch their breath, and still get the payoff.
The trailhead is at 6,100 feet, well signed and just beyond the campground. It is adjacent to the boat access at Butte Lake, a sloped area for kayaks, prams and other self-powered boats. Butte Lake also has picnic sites with lake views and other trailheads.
The trail starts near level, a mix of packed trail in pines with patches of volcanic rubble, for 1.5 miles en route to the base of the Cinder Cone. The trail up is as wide as a road and composed of rubble, a mix of dacite and pumice, and becomes steep for a half-mile climb to the rim. The scree makes for sloppy footing, a bit of a give with every step, but even at 1.5 mph, it takes only about 20 minutes.
As you climb, Lassen Peak emerges to your right. Directly below is a sandy valley that merges into the Painted Dunes. The Fantastic Lava Beds borders much of its base.
When you reach the rim, the interior of the cone is revealed, a caldera that collapsed into itself after blowing its top. A trail rings the rim, with great views in all directions. Gorgeous Snag Lake appears to the south, and from the highest spot on the rim, Butte Lake and the lava beds that border it are in full view.
A cutoff descends inside the interior, where — with the right perspective — you can feel that you have entered another world.
Land of Smoke
From the rim of the Cinder Cone (6,907 feet), you can see how the adjacent Fantastic Lava Beds were created when the cone last erupted. By using carbon dating in a tree killed in the lava, geologists determined the eruption was in approximately 1650.
Just about everywhere you turn, there is evidence of the region’s volcanic history.
The most popular hike, the short trip from the trailhead on the Lassen Park Highway to Bumpass Hell, a geothermal basin with walkways, is closed for renovation this year. From near the trailhead along the Lassen Park Highway, you still can look up and see Mount Brokeoff and Lassen Peak.
From here, you might try to visualize a super volcano, Mount Tehama, that encompassed both Brokeoff and Lassen, a volcano that spanned roughly 15 miles around. It erupted some 600,000 years ago, geologists say. I’ve climbed Brokeoff and Lassen Peak, and when you try to visualize the size of Tehama and its explosion, it boggles the imagination of what can happen on this planet.
Remnants of that past can be found at Devil’s Kitchen, a geothermal area out of Warner Valley, which is accessed on a remote road at Chester near Lake Almanor. The trail is clear and open.