At Lassen Volcanic National Park, exploring a restless landscape

Here, on a Cascade Range morning, a dozen of us are gaping at a large pool of bubbling mud the color of mushroom soup gone very, very bad. A rotten-egg smell fills the air. The interesting thing, says Jesse, is that this bubbling, malodorous, scalding hot pool sustains a form of life found on few other places on Earth — tiny microbes called extremophiles, which can withstand the mud pot’s intense heat and which are so scientifically important that NASA studies them because they might resemble life forms that once existed on Mars. “We’re going to be having a lot of birthday cake,” says Karen Haner, Lassen’s chief of interpretation and education. No national park had a more spectacular birth than this one. Starting in 1914, the 10,000-plus-foot plug dome volcano began steaming and sputtering with increasing violence. [...] on May 22, 1915, it erupted big time, sending a column of ash 35,000 feet into the air and loosing avalanches of hot rocks and gas that incinerated the forests on the mountain’s slope. Much of the spectacle was captured by local homesteader turned photographer B.F. Loomis; even today his images — on display in both park visitor centers — are thrilling and terrifying. Lassen became an international sensation, and, the following summer, a national park. Lassen is the southernmost volcano in the Cascade chain, which includes Mounts Shasta, Rainier and St. Helens. [...] unsettling also means fascinating, as you discover when you start exploring via the Lassen Volcanic National Park Highway, which runs south-north through the park. Here you learn, among other things, that Lassen Park contains all four types of volcanoes known to geologists: plug dome (Lassen), composite (Brokeoff), shield (Prospect Peak, in the park’s northeast corner), and cinder cone (Cinder Cone, also in the northeast corner). From here, head north to Sulphur Works, and then on to Bumpass Hell, an even-more-impressive collection of mud pots, hot springs and fumaroles (vents in the Earth that release steam). Lassen got its name from 19th century Danish emigrant Peter Lassen — a controversial figure because he devised a pioneer trail he alleged to be a shortcut that was in fact more or less a death trap. [...] the 5-mile trail up and down his namesake mountain has been rebuilt for the centennial, and it’s a must-see, among the easier truly spectacular trails anywhere in California. Eventually, the highway leads you to the park’s northwest corner and Manzanita Lake, where campsites cluster among pines and a new village of cabins has been built — so inviting you want to move into one permanently. Nearby is the sweet little Loomis Museum, established by B.F. Loomis and his wife, Estella, with displays on Lassen’s explosive history along with good examples of the American Indian artwork Estella collected. To the southeast, Warner Valley has its own set of hydrothermal attractions, Devil’s Kitchen and Boiling Springs Lake, and is home to Drakesbad Guest Ranch. Persevere, though, and at the summit you can look out past the cone’s crater to a park panorama that extends from the Fantastic Lava Beds below you west toward Brokeoff Mountain and Lassen Peak.