The pin made us do it! Checking off Lassen Volcanic National Park

We have a unique way of tracking each National Park we visit. We don't do passport stamps or stickers. Instead, we collect pins and add them to a pin board, which we use as a decoration, first in our house, and now in our RV. I can't even exactly remember when or why this collection started. I think we have the Everglades and Biscayne to thank for it, because if I recall, we found the pins for those parks at the visitor centers and decided to buy them. These were our 3rd and 4th national parks, and so we retroactively bought Redwoods and Acadia online. Then, with the help of my crafty mom, we created a pin board using a wooden picture frame and upholstery fabric. Funnily, this was well before we decided to RV, and certainly before we thought we'd make a goal to hit as many national parks as possible. Needless to say, the pin collection has grown at a rapid pace, and soon we'll be running out of space! It's on my task list to create a larger pin board this year when we're back in MA.

Of course, collecting anything from our travels is a fun way to remember all our experiences, but our pin collection has provided more entertainment than we ever thought possible, First off, we haven't been able to find pins at every national park. While most visitor centers or gift shops have them, they're not the most popularly sold item, and so sometimes they're just not supplied. Back in 2022, we failed to find a pin for New River Gorge, and so I ordered one to be sent to our home-base in MA and had to wait a month to get it. During that time, we got our Shenandoah pin, but I refused to hang it until I had New River Gorge because they had to stay in order, and I didn't know how much space New River Gorge would need! We also enjoy seeing how much the price of each pin differs from park to park, and which "type" of pin we'll be able to buy. Most of the pins are the Eagle River Designs Travelers Collection pins. You'll notice that they have a distinctive "painterly" look. We tend to prefer these ones because they have a nice aesthetic and fit well on our board. However, sometimes we don't have a design choice, and we end up needing to buy one that looks different or is a different size. The sand dunes are representing with giant photographic pins, and New River Gorge and Saguaro are also larger. Personally, I quite like the style of these ones, but they're harder to find in stores.

The most entertaining pin purchase, though, was at Death Valley, when we had the choice of a few different pins, one of which was a skeleton, which we thought was hilarious. We thought long and hard about whether or not to buy it, but ended up being boring and choosing a more normal pin. To this day, we question our choice.

I tell this elaborate story as an introduction to what happened when we went to the Sequoia National Park visitor center. We had just had our meeting with General Sherman and many of his colleagues, and we were looking forward to grabbing our pin. Ideally, we'd find pins for both Sequoia and Kings Canyon, so we could save time during our visit to Kings Canyon a few days later. The visitor center had a Kings Canyon pin. They did not have a Sequoia National Park pin, unless we bought a pack of 5: Set 1 of the National Parks of California Pack.

This would get us Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and our next park, Yosemite. It would be a waste on Redwoods because we already had that pin. It would also get us Lassen Volcanic, which was barely on our radar and not at all in our plans for parks to visit in the near future. But, we checked the price and determined that, even with the Redwoods throwaway, the pack was worth it. Plus then we wouldn't need to wait to order a Sequoia pin. We really try to get our pins in-person whenever we can.

The thought of needing to keep the Lassen pin safe for God-knows-how-long was stressful. We didn't know the next time we'd be heading out west, especially to more CA national parks. By that time, we might have our cabin or a full-blown house! What if the pin got lost in the transition?! We felt the easier solution would be to just go to Lassen. Seems a bit impulsive, we know, but it was very much in keeping with our whole CA voyage so far. We had barely planned anything ahead of time and instead just moseyed on through the state. And so, we decided to stay in CA longer and drive further than expected, just to hit Lassen and make good on our pin purchase.

Lassen Volcanic National Park is far enough north and high enough in elevation to have really long winters. As all the other CA national parks bustle with springtime aliveness in mid-May, Lassen is just waking up. Most of the park is still covered with snow, and the main road through the park typically opens mid-May at the earliest, often much later. Like many national park roads, before they open for vehicles, they often open for pedestrians and bikes. We love ebiking the roads without vehicles. We did this at Glacier's Going to the Sun Road both from the West and East sides, and we also did it at Craters of the Moon. This made our decision of what to do at Lassen easy. If the road was open by the time we arrived, we'd do a scenic drive through the park. If it wasn't, we'd ebike as far as we could go.

We had a week and a half between booking our campsite and going to the park, during which I monitored the snow removal progress on the road. From the south, snow removal had already been completed from the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center to Sulfur Works a mile up the road. Pedestrians and cyclists could go a few miles further. A week and a half later, no more progress had been reported, and the access to the road had remained the same.

What we didn't realize, was that no hiking trails would be open, either. We assumed that there would be some near the lower elevations that we could take, but even those were still covered with snow. When we got to the visitor center, we saw a group preparing to cross country ski one of the trails, and we're sure some might be conducive to snow shoeing, but we don't travel with our snow shoes and wouldn't feel safe trekking feet-deep on unfamiliar trails, anyway. We stuck with our plan to bike until we couldn't go any further, and just enjoy whatever we could see along the way.

Unlike our other CA national parks this year – Death Valley, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite – we didn't have any expectations about Lassen. All we knew is that it formed from volcanic activity and has various areas of hydrothermal features, cinder cones, and volcanic mountains. Going in with this little knowledge was surprisingly refreshing. We didn't feel any pressure to do anything except get some exercise and learn some facts about the park.

We planned to park at the visitor center and bike the full road, even the mile that allowed vehicles. Finally, we didn't need to worry about getting there early to avoid crowds! We took our time venturing over to the visitor center, only 15 minutes away from where we were staying. Somehow, we timed our arrival perfectly with the visitor center's 9:30am opening. We stopped in, bought a couple of souvenirs, and perused the museum displays before the ranger invited us to watch the park introduction video in the auditorium. When we know next-to-nothing about a park, the video is our favorite learning tool. We learned that Lassen is one of only a few places on earth that contains all 4 types of volcanoes: shield, plug dome, cinder cone, and composite. They're also in closer than typical proximity to one another. The last volcanic eruption here was only a little over a century ago and included a series of eruptions, small to large, over the course of a few years. We noted that these eruptions occurred in the month of May, the same month we were visiting. Even though the area has remained quiet since 1917, it's still an active volcano, and earth scientists continue to study the ground in order to try and predict when the next eruption might be, and therefore, what precautions can be made. Even though these eruptions cause lots of devastation, they are part of the environment's natural cycle. Also a part of that cycle are wildfires.

We left the visitor center and hopped on our bikes, first stopping at Sulfur Works, the park's most accessible hydrothermal area and only one open this time of year. We could smell it a mile away! This used to be a private sulfur mining site and now showcases the volcanic activity found in the park, boasting vibrantly colored rocks and features such as mudpots and steam vents.

We're glad to share the sights and sounds with you, but just be happy that smell can't yet be translated through digital means. We've been to Iceland, Yellowstone, and Thermopolis, and this was by far the most pungent sulfur smell we've ever encountered. Perhaps it's worse when there's snow cover because all the fumes get trapped. We also wonder if this has something to do with the historic eruptions being in May, when the snow starts to melt and the gasses can finally escape. But this is just conjecture from two earth science ignorami.

After Sulfur Works, we knew we'd be entering more places of solitude, as most visitors wouldn't continue much further on foot. We did share the road with a few fellow cyclists, but we were the only ones on ebikes. We definitely had the easiest and fastest method of transportation. The whole road was uphill for the next 4 miles until the closure. While we didn't see anymore volcanic areas, we could smell and hear some. The only other views we got were of the landscape, dotted by peaks of volcanic mountains and dark burned tree trunks and lava rocks, in vivid contrast with the white snow.

The further up we went, the more snow we encountered. The snow banks were so tall, they blocked the rest of the overlooks, but riding through them was its own adventure. We felt like we were traveling through a tunnel!

Soon, we caught up with the removal equipment, all parked for their off day since it was a Sunday. We took some photos to mark our end point, before we turned around and breezed – a painfully cold breeze – back down the hill.

Our little snowy introduction to Lassen left us with 2 thoughts. First, we would definitely need to come back in the summertime to see more. Second, even with the little bit we experienced, we have a feeling this national park could be a dark horse that shoots to the top ranks of our favorite national parks. It kind of felt like the love child of Glacier and Yellowstone, but with its own unique attributes. We don't know when our return trip to this park will be, and if by then we'll still be full-time in our RV, part-time in our RV, or traveling by some other means, but we do know we are looking forward to whenever that time comes. Meanwhile, we're happy to be able to hang our pin – California national park #7 of 9, and park #37 in total.