Fans of boiling mud pits, hissing steam vents and stinky sulfurous gases may be interested to know one of the most popular trails in Lassen Volcanic National Park opened this week.
The three-mile round-trip hike over the park’s Bumpass Hell Trail opened Monday, according to park spokeswoman Sierra Coon.
The trail’s opening marks one of the final steps in the park’s emergence from a long winter. While Redding and the Sacramento Valley baked under a June summer sun, the park was still being cleared of its winter layer of snow.
The park road was finally cleared of its heavy layer of snow on June 26, allowing motorists access through the north-south route of the park.
While the area has a volcanic legacy, heavy snowfall also is the norm for the park.
Lassen Peak, one of the park’s premier features, is the snowiest mountain in California and the second snowiest place in the continental United States. The peak, on the southeastern edge of Shasta County, receives an average of about 45 feet of snowfall annually.
The mountain’s elevation (10,456 feet) and geographic orientation contribute to the area’s heavy snow, according to the National Weather Service office in Sacramento.
In contrast to the park’s snowy peak are the belching mud pots, boiling pools of clear water known as frypans and hot steam vents in the Bumpass Hell hydrothermal area, all visible from the Bumpass Hell Trail.
The Big Boiler, the largest fumarole ― a steam vent that emits hot gases ― in the park throws off steam that has been measured at 322 degrees, according to Visit California, a state tourism website.
Hikers get a view of the pits, pots and vents from a boardwalk, an elevated trail that runs through the geothermal area.
The 16-acre basin derived its name from Kendall Vanhook Bumpass an early explorer who encountered the hydrothermal area in the 1860s, Visit California says. Unfortunately for Bumpass, he stepped through the thin crust of a boiling mud pot that scalded him so badly that part of his leg had to be amputated, according to the state tourism website.
Coon said the Bumpass Hell Trail’s opening Monday was “hotly anticipated.”
Coon said nearly all of the rest of the park is open for the summer season. The exception is the road to Juniper Lake, which is closed to vehicles due to damage from the 2021 Dixie Fire.
Also damaged by the fire, the second-largest in California history, was the Drakesbad Guest Lodge, but that also has reopened, Coon said.
Reporter Damon Arthur welcomes story tips at 530-338-8834 and by email at damon.arthur@redding.com. Help local journalism thrive by subscribing today!
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Now that this North State trail is open, you can go straight to Bumpass Hell
Reporting by Damon Arthur, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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