Mt. Lassen

Burney Falls on the way to Mt. Lassen Volcano

May 22, 1915

Mt. Lassen today
from the north side 

There’s a hidden story beneath the landscape in these parts.  Quiet now, so unlike the violence of 1915.  

 "Hot Rock" today
 from about the same place
as the Loomis picture 

“Hot Rock”
photographed by B. F. Loomis
after the eruption

Mt. Lassen erupted in a small way on May 19, 1915, then went quiet for three days.  Nobody knew that the crater had only let off a little steam, and that it continued to well up with lava.  Like a lid covering a boiling pot, the pressure built, and the mountain exploded on May 22.  Its plume rose 30,000 feet and was seen from 150 miles away.  This boulder, pictured some weeks after the eruption, came plummeting down the mountain in a flood of rock, lava, and melted snow and stopped in a pool of mud, which its heat sizzled for weeks.  I found the approximate place where the picture was taken.  The peak, clearly visible in the old photo, is barely seen through a forest that has grown up since the eruption.

Mt. Lassen Trail

Mt. Lassen Trailhead, 8,512 feet,
looking at the summit, 10,457 feet 

Having done a little research before starting up to the summit, I tried to read the landscape, perhaps decipher its fine print.  Surely, much is going on beneath this volcanic surface, and though I cannot study it as geologists have and do, some truths just might await an observing soul.  

Mt. Lassen Trail
gate at 1.3 miles up,
1.4 miles short of the summit  

Halfway up the mountain, a great insight struck me.  I could see the workers far up the trail as they loosened rocks that were about to tumble, protecting such as me from bumps on the head.  I took this last picture toward the summit, feeling fully capable of walking all the way, yet stopped.  Now what do you think about that?