Lassen Camping Trip

Hello again, long time no post!

I haven't had the chance to travel much lately, but a few weeks ago we took a long weekend to go live in the woods up in Lassen Volcanic National Park. Camping is the type of vacation that takes a bit more preparation and work than, say, an all-inclusive resort where all you have to do is throw money at people to have things taken care of for you. But there's something to be said for roughing it in the wilderness completely off the grid, and cooking your own food over an open fire as you gaze up at the stars, unobstructed by any light pollution or smog.

Banana smores are surprisingly good

We stayed at the Summit Lake campsite, a medium sized site conveniently located right in the middle of the park close to most of the major hiking trailheads. As the name implies, we were also right next to a small lake, which turned out to be a great place to dip our feet after a long hike, and also to get some great views of the night sky. My only complaint is that a few of our neighbors did not seem to care about quiet hours. (PSA: Quiet hours at most campgrounds are 10pm - 6am, and people will think you're a total ass if you're too loud during that time.) Oh well. Maybe we'll go to a more remote campsite next time.

View of Lassen Peak near our campsite at Summit Lake

National parks are great places to hike, and Lassen is no exception. Here are the hikes we did on this trip:

1. Lassen Peak: 5 miles roundtrip, 1950 feet elevation gain. Lassen Peak is the tallest mountain in the park, and the hike to the top is one of the most highly recommended hikes for the grand, sweeping, panoramic views at the top. It’s also a thigh burner - you’re climbing for 2.5 miles straight to the top. I would recommend this hike for anyone who hasn’t done it before, but I would also recommend being in decent shape and/or taking frequent breaks on the way up. Hiking at 9000 feet elevation is no joke.

Top of Lassen Peak

2. Cold Boiling Lake: 1.4 miles roundtrip, 40 feet elevation gain. Our second hike was more of a cool-down walk after finishing Lassen Peak. The hike started at the Kings Creek trailhead and followed an easy trail through the woods to a small bubbling lake. It was a nice walk, but nothing to go out of your way for. 

Cold Boiling Lake

3. Bumpass Hell: 3 miles roundtrip, 800 feet elevation gain. This is one of Lassen’s signature hikes that I would consider to be a must-see for anyone visiting. Lassen is known for its many geothermal features, and Bumpass Hell is one of the best hikes to see them from. The trail starts out flat and then descends into a small valley where you can get up close (but not too close!) to steam vents, bubbling mudpots, and boiling pools. It’s one of those things you don’t get to see just anywhere, so I would highly recommend checking it out.

Bumpass Hell

Lassen tends to be one of the more underrated parks, which is fine because that means less crowds to deal with. It’s a great place to get away and go on some nice hikes, and I know I’ll be back to explore the other regions of the park.

A Night Under the Stars at Fremont Peak

A few months back, M had bought a tent on a whim. With ski season and weekend Tahoe trips coming to an end, we decided to finally put the tent into use with an inaugural camping trip. Now as most bay area outdoor enthusiasts would know, it’s nearly impossible to get a campsite reservations at the big parks like Yosemite and Big Sur without booking months in advance, so we settled on the lesser known Fremont Peak State Park, a little over an hour southeast of southbay. Though it lacks the big name appeal, Fremont Peak was a nice place for a weekend camping getaway with great views of both the surrounding landscape and the stars.

Fremont Peak, a park above the clouds

We stayed at campsite 8 in the Valley View campground. The campsite was small, but had more than enough room for a single large tent. It was a little inconvenient not having a water spigot or trashcan in our site, but both were just a short walk away, and in exchange we had probably the best view of the valley out of all the campsites there. 

View of sunset from our campsite

Fremont Peak is a relatively small state park. We spent the afternoon hiking the only loop trail (~4-5 miles) around the park with an offshoot going up to the summit. The landscape actually changes rather dramatically from one side of the park to the other. On the west side we hiked through mostly dense woodland (despite the segment being called the Valley View Trail, it had the least view out of all the trail segments), to the north was more dry and sparse, and the southeast part of the trail was on the edge of a steep incline, covered in green grass and blooming purple flowers. 

Hills full of flowers

The actual peak summit was definitely the highlight of the hike. The ascent started off fairly moderate, but by the end we were scrambling over large rocks to get to the top. The weather was great the day we went, and we could see for miles in all directions. You could see Monterey bay, a lot of the central valley, and even a little bit of Silicon Valley peeking from behind the Santa Cruz mountains to the north. The descent was a bit precarious - there were a lot of people at the summit who we thought were just chilling up there, but we suspect they were just stuck and not sure how to get down because a large group left right after seeing us make our way down - but we eventually made it down and back to the campsite.

View from the summit

Aside from the great views, one of the biggest defining features of Fremont Peak is the observatory. A group of friendly volunteers work at the observatory and hold astronomy talks and viewings every Saturday afternoon and evening without a full moon. We stopped by in the afternoon in the middle of the hike to peek through some of the telescopes they had set up to see prominences and sunspots on the sun. Later that evening, we returned to attend the talk on solar eclipses. It was a little cloudy that night, but we were still able to spot multiple constellations, the International Space Station, and galaxies much farther away. My favorites of the night were the views of Jupiter and a few of its moons and the globular cluster M3. 

Fremont Peak observatory at night

Before deciding to make this trip, I had never even heard of Fremont Peak, and most other people I talked to hadn’t either (“Is that in Fremont?”). It’s definitely a hidden gem in the increasingly overcrowded bay area, and a great place to go for some peace and quiet in the wilderness.