Lassen

Lassen Volcanic National Park near Redding, California.

230 photos

The trail approaching Cinder Cone from the west.
Rachel, seeking shade under the only tree for miles in...
Fantastic Lava Beds. Near Cinder Cone.
Rachel starting the hike up Cinder Cone. Snow-covered...
Nothing but ash. Looking up towards the top of Cinder...
John at the top of Cinder Cone, in front of the crater.
Rachel and John in front of the Fantastic Lava Beds.
Rachel boulder-hopping in the fantastic lava beds.
Lassen Peak, reflected in a lake.
Some guy had a heart attack on the trail to the top of...
So apparently they don't have chipmunks in Europe. That...
John enjoying the view east from the top of Lassen Peak.
John and Rachel at Bumpass Hell.
John and Rachel at Bumpass Hell.
John and Stephan at Bumpass Hell.
Alison chilling in the driver's seat of the green machine.
Somehow this looks like a bad photoshop job or a...
Lake Helen. John would camp here the following winter.
Little black bugs in Lake Helen that would float on the...
Looking towards Bumpass Hell from the parking area.
John and Alison at Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic National Park.
Alison, making a candidacy for a Darwin Award. (Zoom in...
Alison and John on the southern entrance road of Lassen...
John and Niels climbing Diamond Peak.
Dr. Lance performs an emergency anti-blister operation...
Niels finding a short-cut on CA-89.
Lance, headed toward Bumpass Hell on CA-89
John and Niels dig a snow column to learn about avalanche safety.
Lance prepares to teach us a thing or two about avalanche safety.
Niels, having just dug his own grave, gives a sign of approval.
Sun rise against Lassen Peak, as viewed from John's snow cave.
Good morning campers!! - John
Lance, headed up Lassen Peak.
Niels, trekking onward and upwards.
Lance, pausing for a moment, to survey the...
Note in the right of this picture is evidence of a...
Niels, having reached the highest point of our ascent...
Approximately 4.5 minutes and -800 feet after we...
The snow brick quarry.
The man and the mountain. Niels readies his gear for...
Niels, Catherine, and some guy hike up the (closed) road...
Catherine hiking uphill, new snowboard on her back. ...
The group (including cgh) hiking up the bottom of...
John and Niels have a midmorning snack (chocolate and...
Continuing up the mountain...
Pausing just below the final path to the top. The snow...
John, Niels, and some ski poles.
Catherine at the top!
The very top of the mountain
Still at the top.
Pausing on the decent back down. You can't really see...
The benchmark at the top. Do not tamper with it. Elev:...
What makes it all worth it: on the way back down.
Pausing to take of the board for easier traversing... A...
Happily booting back up (we're near the top again!).
Pausing before the final switchbacks to the top.
The view in the other direction.
Chaos Crags, from the top of Lassen.
Smaller mountains near Lassen. We skiied one of the...
The top of Lassen
More of the top of Lassen
Looking down on the Chaos Crags
Self-photography at its best.
The top of Lassen
Chilling on the mountainside. The gloves were only...
Catherine beginning her descent.
Heelside edging...
...a turn or two later...
On a short traverse below a rocky outcropping.
Riding the toeside. Check the consistency of the snow...
Finishing the run. Again, check the snow.
Happy kid, with a lot of mountain left to ski.
These are kind of blurry, but... John starting his run.
Coming out of a turn.
And another turn.
John dropping a knee.
About to start another run.
Catherine avoiding the rocks.
Looking for fresh corn snow.
Attempting a knuckle-drag...
...and almost being successful...
Finishing the run.
Of course, the mountain just keeps going down.
The surrounding scenery was insanely gorgeous.
John starting a run.
Reaching for a pole plant...
Coming over a small ridge.
Making a turn.
This picture would be cool had I not been far too zoomed...
Happy happy.
Scoping the trail below.
Turn and go!
Surveying what lies ahead.
The answer: a lot of mountains.
John, mid-turn.
In the foreground: the reason John should be wearing kneepads...
Superstar tele skier.
Volcanoes: very rugged mountains.
Portrait of a snowboarder who doesn't want the day to end.
Checking out the view.
Psyching up for the next run.
A nearby mountain face, calling our names, and the pass...
Catherine disassembling her board.
Color-coordination is important on a ski slope.
Booting over the pass.
A change of wardrobe later, skiing down to the car.
The girl. The mountain. The board. Etc.
Strapping back in.
Foot number two.
If the snow is called corn snow, then those are corn rows.
Passing the lake near John's February campsite.
Taking the board apart once more.
Proof for anyone who says there can't be snow left, even...
Climbing it was difficult...
John's outfit was goofy, and admired by all.
Realize that he's standing multiple feet away from the...
John in front of Lassen. Tired but satisfied.
More snow than you can shake a stick (pole?) at.
After the final descent Sunday - check the wider tracks...
Catherine finishing up loading up her bag (from afar),...
John helps Monica set up her snowshoes in the parking...
Vinnie trying on his rented snowshoes with plastic...
Yang's ride.
John, getting ready to leave just as the snow was picking up.
Vinnie, starting out on the trail.
Hiking along CA-89.
Monica, during a brief moment of semi-sunshine.
Yang, trekking along.
Vinnie, climbing the steep mountainside as we left the...
Yang, trekking uphill.
Vinnie, stepping carefully.
These trees got seriously covered in snow.
A few weeks ago I threw out the idea to a few friends to...
Making things even more interesting, the week before our...
With so much new snow, the going was slow, tiring work....
John, on the ski in, while we still had tracks to...
It was a bit incongruous to see bubbling mud pits and...
This was the most challenging part of the climb: trying...
Still climbing up...
Crossing an avalanche gully one at a time.
The road switchbacks up the mountainside endlessly, so...
The group takes a rest as we regain the road on the...
The clouds break for a moment.
Slow but steady progress.
John and Vinnie somewhere around the south flank of...
Cresting the north ridge of Diamond Peak we are offered...
In camp the next day, Monica helps prepare breakfast....
View of Lassen Peak from my sleeping bag.
Monica, enjoying the sunshine and relatively warm temperatures.
Waking up the next morning, we were met with a bright...
John digs a pit around a block of snow to perform a...
The weekend involved a lot of shoveling of snow.
A rutschblock test is a test of a column of snow to...
An attempt at showing the layers of snow - they're all...
Blue skies and snowy trees. We had gorgeous weather on...
Clouds starting to materialize. The flat cut you see in...
Digging our avalanche test pit. Yang at the left, John...
With 5-6 feet of snow in the last storm, we had a lot of...
Snow cave where John and Monica slept.
John testing the snow column we dug.
John standing on the snow column to test it for stability.
Jumping up and down on the snow column to test the...
Column finally collapses.
Yang snowboarding.
Vinnie snowboarding with poles (Monica watches from right).
Vinnie snowboarding with poles.
Group shot in the snow cave.
Yang, inside our main snow cave. Check out our custom...
John, inside our snow cave on our second night out.
Monica tries to take a photo without flash to capture...
Monica and Yang, cooking dinner on our second night out.
Vinnie and John.
Yang and I went snowboarding / skiing on our own on the...
Yang snowboarding.
Yang keeping his front tip up. My tracks are at the right.
Yang, on the hike back uphill.
John, hiking back to camp.
Yang, just about back at camp.
Yang, packing up and getting ready for our hike back to the car.
A picture of Vinnie emerging from the entrance to our...
Zoomed out shot showing our chimney, capped with some...
Monica, Vinnie and Yang.
John and Monica, as we pack up and get ready to head...
View down our chimney.
Yang and Monica, snowshoeing away from camp.
Diamond Peak, in the snow.
Hiking out.
My turns.
Crossing one at a time, again.
Yang, with snowflakes and sun.
Snowflakes and sun.
Monica trudging along.
Vinnie, on the hike out.
Yang, crossing a great looking slope.
Abbey Road-esque? Need two more people...
Monica, posing.
Vinnie.
Yang, on the steep downhill section.
Yang, pretending to tele-turn.
Group shot.
Termales!
John, on the ski / hike back to the car on our third day.
Back at the road, we find many broken trails...
... including separate tracks for skiers and snowshoers.
Monica smiling to be on the home stretch.
John on the ski out. This was a bit unfair as the grade...
Making some turns on the way out.
John, on the ski out.
Snow falling heavily.
Only problem was that if I dropped a knee too low, the...
Skiing across a small gully we took one at a time.
Snow still coming down heavily.
John, with the Lassen Sulphur Works in the background...
Group shot, back at the car.
Crazy clouds driving down from the mountains on the road...
Tom, one of my classmates, takes a measurement of slope...
Mara, one of my classmates, and the only other...
John's snow pit, with pencil (for testing snow hardness)...
Richard, our guide, at the right leads us to a place...
Interesting needle shaped snowflakes that had been...
Richard shows how to use a plastic card to measure snow...
Mara and Julie examine layers in our snow pit.
On Sunday, we self-planned a full day ski tour using the...
At the top of our first ski hill.
Classmate John Huang took a tumble down the hill.
After skiing to the bottom, we skinned back to the top...
Richard, our guide and instructor.
Here is the hill we skied down. It was actually 30-35...
Julie, my carpool partner, rides down on the second or...
John Huang has another wipeout.