)The plan for last weekend was to spend a four-day weekend skiing in Tahoe - late March is, after all, supposed to be the height of the snow pack. Spending 4 days on my rock skis didn't seem very appealing, so I spent two days doing that then went to Lassen. With the road open to the Devastated Area the revised plan was to snow camp on the north side at some interesting location. Then, I saw online that the Butte Lake entrance was just opened. This is a dirt road, therefore no snow - opening meant clearing downed trees off the road. So, I went hiking from Butte Lake around Snag Lake. Snow...I crossed snow for about a minute or so at one point on the hike, and the trail down the north side of Cinder Cone had snow along it, but at no point did the snow cover the entire descent!
Otherwise...hiking in Lassen. In March. Weird.
There were a decent, but not terrible, number of downed trees across the trail. I'd guess this might be the case for a while, as trail crews aren't normally expected to be available in Lassen in March. And, this is March...the morning freezing temperatures linger for a while so pack for it, it's not summer when a half hour after sunrise means t-shirt weather. But later in the day, t-shirt.
Cinder Cone from Butte Lake:
Snag Lake, and the edge of the Lava Bed. Butte Lake appeared, about, 2-3 feet below its rim. Snag Lake's "outlet" is through the porous lava bed...it's about 10 feet below its rim, meaning that the shallow bay on the northeast side is just about bare.
Colorful rock on the edge of the lava bed:
Mt. Lassen, Painted Dunes.
Mt. Lassen, from the top of the Cinder Cone:
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2015 07:50PM by ttilley.
