Some national parks have a day or weekend at the beginning or end of the regular season when roads that are covered in snow during the winter are clear and ready for cars. But before cars are allowed in, hikers and bikers can use the road without the presence of cars. Crater Lake has a weekend before the rim road is closed for the season where cyclists can ride the road with no cars in the way, before the road is closed to everyone in September. Lassen Volcanic National Park has such a day early in the season, just after the roads are cleared of snow in the spring. This day is called the Walk and Bike Event. In 2016, it was held on June 11 and we made a day trip from Sacramento to participate.
We start at the Kohm Yah-Mah-Nee Visitor Center at the southern end of the park. We could see that the trail into the park was closed after the entrance station and there was a line of hikers on the trail that led to the geothermal area further into the park, Sulfur Works. After a short stop at the visitor center to ask questions and change into cycling gear, we unloaded the bikes from the back of our vehicle.
We started biking up a long incline to the Sulfur Works and after crossing a bridge we stopped to look at a bubbling clay pot. The path then continues uphill again to a lookout point overlooking the visitor center. It then curves around Diamond Peak to point north and offers a view of Mount Lassen. We stopped along the way to take pictures and make adjustments to the bikes. We also got video footage of other bikes going down the incline, in addition to our point of view footage using our GoPro cameras.
Mount Lassen dominates the view to the north and is a very distinct peak. Since it’s a volcano, it’s that cone-shaped you’d expect, but on its southern flank there are huge blocks of cooled lava that form a distinct wall down the slope of the ridge. It gives Lassen’s southern face a look that really stands out.
After climbing a big switchback, the most winding part of the trail south of the peak, we continued on the trail that reached Emerald Lake. It was still packed with snow with some melt water around the edge. A little further on we come to Lake Helen, a large body of water south of Lassen Peak. South of Lake Helen are some steep slopes.
We have skied Lassen Park Road before and this part of the road always gives us cause for concern. The winding road that leads to Lake Helen often has snow packed on the slope, so a slip on the skis could result in a very long slide down the slope below the road. Also, on Lake Helen, the slopes to the south often have overhanging ledges that could break off and fall down the slope onto the road we are skiing on.
After turning along the south side of Lake Helen heading east, the highway turns north again and climbs to the Lassen Peak parking area, which is near the highest point of the highway. We biked up this slope that had snow on both sides of the road and a snow plow parked in the middle. We were riding mountain bikes, but still felt a bit embarrassed when a guy riding a road bike walked past us. We consoled ourselves with the fact that his bike was lighter than ours, so it was easier for him.
When we got to the Lassen Peak parking area we stopped and looked at it for a bit and read the sign at the trailhead. The snow bank around the parking area was higher than the top of the sign. We could see from the footprints in the snow, that some were trying to climb to the top even with the snow so deep.
A short distance from the parking area is the highest point along Lassen Park Road. We reached it in no time, then had a long eastbound descent away from the peak. There were switchbacks further down that slope as well, but these aren’t nearly as narrow as the switchback that goes up the slope from the south entrance. Either way, getting to the highest point on the road involves changing directions.
We were hoping to go further down the road to the Devastated Area or even Manzanita Lake, but we didn’t get to the park as early as we wanted, so we turned around at the Kings Creek Trailhead turnoff and headed back up to the highest point of the road to get back to the car before sunset.
Since then, we’ve discovered that Lassen gets more snow than just about anywhere else in California. The trail east of the trailhead had a lot of snow even though we were doing this trip in June. As we headed back up the switchbacks to the highest point, there was enough snow that we couldn’t see over the banks. At this point, we weren’t that keen on taking too many photos and wanted to get video footage from the GoPro point of view, so we didn’t stop as often. Also, the sun was approaching the western horizon, so still photography was not a priority.
After the high point we didn’t stop at the Lassen Peak trailhead parking area and waited for some quick downhill stretches to get back to the car. We discussed the next shots we wanted to get with the GoPros before we started catching up. We obtained images looking back at the cyclist, following the cyclist from behind, and following the cyclist from the side, right, and left.
Before continuing past Lake Helen, we stopped to take pictures of the snow-filled lake and a blue ring of meltwater around it. The white snow with a light blue ring looked very interesting, especially with Lassen Peak looming over it.
We made it to the switchbacks after Emerald Lake but had to use the brakes to keep from speeding up too much because there was water on the trail from snow melting off the snowbanks that we were worried about slipping. When we got back to Sulfur Works we were in deepening shadows as the sun went down and there were plenty of hikers hurrying down the trail back to their cars.
We got to our car while it was still light enough to see what we were doing as we loaded the bikes back onto the rack. We then changed out of our bike riding clothes in the visitor center bathroom before heading back to Sacramento.
