This is a good place to observe birds. The dark, grey-brown water ouzel, or dipper, can usually be seen or heard near the outlet where Hat Creek is crossed by the Park Road. [Illustration: DIPPER or WATER OUZEL (grey-brown)] Just across the road from the parking area, the trail to the south goes to Paradise Meadow: (1.5 miles). An excellent variety of wildflowers bloom along the trail in mid-summer. Terrace Lake is 2.9 miles from here, and the road is again reached at an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet, 0.5 miles beyond this. (0.4 mile) 43 HAT MOUNTAIN. This volcanic cone has an elevation of 7,695 feet, rising about 1,000 feet above Summit Lake near its south base. (0.1 mile) 44 HEART OF THE DEVASTATED AREA. 10,457-foot Lassen Peak rises about 4,000 feet to the southwest. It is the largest plug volcano known. It was formed rapidly, being forced up as a stiff pasty mass of lava. On May 30, 1914, without warning, Lassen Peak started a series of eruptions which lasted through 1917. The hundred eruptions during the first year were steam explosions which threw out ash, cinders and boulders, thus clearing out a new crater. On May 19, 1915, a black dacite lava flow welled up into this crater and spilled over to the southwest and northeast. At the southwest the lava descended about 1,000 feet on the Sacramento Valley side of the mountain, cooled and hardened. However, the lava coming down the northeast slope broke off in large pasty chunks, quickly melting a huge accumulation of snow. The resulting water, mixed with the large volume of fine and coarse debris from earlier eruptions formed a great mudflow which roared down the mountainside. Divided by Raker Peak, part of this mudflow went down Lost Creek, which the main road now follows northward. The rest went over the 100 foot rise in the east and down that Creek. It cut a swath through the forest which had been continuous across Lassen’s lower and middle slopes. Fertile meadows were covered by as much as 20 feet of mudflow debris. The bark of trees on the edge of the mudflow was pounded and ripped off as high as 18 feet above the ground. [Illustration: Landscape] LASSEN PEAK 1915 LAVA FLOW (NE) CRESCENT CRATER SURVIVORS HILL Area swept by hotblast only Area swept by mudflow and hotblast