Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller
Date: July 11, 2022
This was a great 3.5-mile moderate trail. Elevation was 8,400 at the trailhead and descended about 300 feet along a narrow rocky semi-wooded trail giving us outstanding views of the park, Bumpass Mountain and valley looking east. We passed beautiful Lake Helen with Mt. Lassen Peak in the background. About 1.5 miles later, the trail forked and as we trekked down switchbacks to the basin to the biggest hydrothermal area in the park. The trail changed to a boardwalk and the terrain opened to many fumaroles (steam and volcanic gas vents), mud pots and boiling hot springs. The sandy ground was multi-colored, the hydrothermal pits (at a scalding 240 degrees) spewing steam. Ascending back up the trail in the 95-degree weather, we saw several deer. As we drove to the southwest visitor center the steam from another pit area blew across the road.
