Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for TouristsMills, Enos A.
Philosophy
Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for Tourists
Mills, Enos A.
National parks and reserves -- Canada; National parks and reserves -- United States; West (U.S.) -- Guidebooks
All about Lassen Peak are striking exhibits of vulcanism--fields of
lava, quantities of obsidian or natural glass, sulphur springs, hot
springs, volcanic sand and volcanic bombs, and recent volcanic
topography, including Snag Lake.
Two of the imposing cañons here are Los Molinos and Warner Cañon.
These and other changes in the sides of Lassen Peak illustrate the
old, ever-interesting, and eternal story of erosion. Both these cañons
are wild places which have cut and eroded deeply into the ancient
lavas of Mount Lassen. Frost and water have reshaped the work of fire.
The mountain's sides show that it withstood the latest visits of the
Ice King. What appear to be the distinct records of glacial erosion
mark many spaces of its slopes.
[Illustration: LASSEN PEAK IN ERUPTION
_Copyright, 1914, by B. F. Loomis_]
The eruption of May 19, 1915, produced many changes. A volume of
super-heated gases burst out beneath the deeply snow-covered northeast
slope. The snow was instantly changed into water and steam. The mighty
downrush and onrush of water wrecked the channel of Lost Creek for
several miles. Meadows were piled with boulders, rock fragments, and
finer débris. Trees were uprooted or broken off, carried downward, and
left in piles of fierce confusion.
The hot gases played havoc with the forests. A stretch from a quarter
of a mile to nearly a mile wide and about ten miles long was killed by
the heat of the sweeping hurricane. Thousands of trees were instantly
killed and their green changed to brown. Others were charred. Forest
fires were started in a number of places.
The spectacular ruins which this left behind--the trees, wreckage,
slides, the changes made by ashes--may now be viewed with ease and
safety. It is probable that for years to come this volcanic wreckage
will be seen by thousands of visitors annually.
Fiery Lassen Peak is snow-crowned. One may ride to its summit on
horseback. From the top one has magnificent views of the mountains to
the north, the distant Coast Range, and the mountains eastward by the
Great Basin. On the whole, the surrounding mountain distances are
hardly excelled for grandeur in the entire country.
Cinder Cone is about ten miles to the northeast of Lassen Peak. It has
an altitude of only 6907 feet. It appears to have been built up
chiefly during the last two hundred years and for the most part by two
eruptions. One of these occurred nearly two hundred years ago. It
originated Stump Lake and ejected and spread materials over
considerable territory. The more recent eruption appears to have taken
place less than a century ago. In the summer of 1890 I found in the
crater a lodge-pole pine that was about eighty years of age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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