Lassen Volcanic N.P.

Wednesday

While at Red Bluff we made the decision to strike East to visit a lesser known National Park - Lassen Volcanic N.P. Essentially it is a large volcano, with other smaller volcanoes and volcanic phenomena thrown in as well. By now we have worked out that the whole of the Sierra Nevada Mountains are the product of igneous activity, as opposed to the Rocky Mountain Range, which is mainly old sedimentary rocks thrown up to make mountains by the meeting of two tectonic plates, although it too has more than its fair share of volcanoes and igneous rocks.
Anyway, on Thursday morning we set out, having called the N.P. to find thestate of the roads and campgrounds, as we are now moving more into winter and there is the possiblility of closures due to snow. We were reassured by the taped messages that campgrounds were open and had water, so we did not fill our on board fresh water tank, to reduce the weight of the trailer. Although the drive is only about 50 miles it took us nearly a couple of hours as was quite a twisty road, climbing up to 8000 ft in the park.
We arrived at the N.P. and admired the beautiful setting of numerous volcanoes and lots of coniferous trees, only to be told at the park entrance that although some campgrounds were open the water had been turned off for frost protection. There was nothing we could do apart from register our displeasure that they could not get their messages right on the phone, for which they apologied, but did nothing else. So we were now 17 miles from the nearest water! Fortnuyately there are a number of lakes in the park, filled with sparkling clear mountain water, so we stopped at Emerald Lake and used gallon water bottles to slowly fill our fresh water tank, inconvenient but workable. We continued to drive through the park trying hard not to see the volcanic wonders there, as we iontended to return the next day to explore further. We eventually pulled up at Summit Lake South Campground, a campground right in the middle of the park, found a site with a view of the lake and set ourselves up. It was very nice and peaceful, as there were only a couple of other campers there.