Lassen Volcanic National Park

After a great few days in Yosemite we headed up north to this gem of a national park. I'd never heard of it before the trip, but some of the standard fly / drive itineraries drive through the park (without stopping) and a bit of googling made me think this was somewhere worth spending a few days - and it absolutely was!

Mount Lassen is a dormant volcano. It last exploded on 22 May 1915 and was made a national park shortly afterwards (the cynic in me says it got made a park because they weren't sure how safe the mountain was!).

A photographer called Benjamin Loomis took some shots of the volcano exploding. His life was probably saved by the fact that he had run out of photographic plates before the main explosion and had started to drive out of the area.

Hard to get a photograph that encapsulates the scale of the park. This one was taken from a hike up Brokeoff Mountain (9235 feet) that gives a great view back to the Volcano.