Hiking Lassen Volcanic National Park

Mike White does an excellent job of pulling together great hikes in an easy-to-use format. Not only are the hikes nicely described, but there are good maps and, at the beginning of each hike, information about the mileage and likely level of difficulty. An unusual (and attractive) aspect of White's books are the grids of all the hikes at the back of the book that show mileages, level of difficulty, scenery, etc., enabling one to go directly to those hikes that are of a desired distance. My only disappointment with this book was that, unlike his Sequoia and Kings Canyon books, this one doesn't tell in what months the trails are likely to be snow-free.

I have been going to Lassen for many years, and mainly hiked the same trails that draw people to the park....the trail to Lassen Peak, the trail to Kings Creek Falls, and the trail to Bumpass Hell. Even though I have a copy of the large trail map that includes contour lines, Salcedo-Chourre's book was what I really needed! She describes each hike and rates it for difficulty, includes the mileage, shows a map of the trail and trailheads, and includes an elevation profile. She also includes natural history, human history, and geological info where appropriate. I learned new things even about the trails I have been hiking for years! There is a section of the book that has the hikes divided by difficulty, so if you know you have no interest in a strenuous hike, you can choose from the easy and moderate hikes without looking through the whole book. This book has opened up a whole new part of Lassen to me and my family!

Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park is very much a hiker's park. Although it is not as large as other national parks in California, it boasts numerous pretty lakes, nice volcanic peaks including Mt Lassen itself, easily the most accessible of the spectacular peaks in the Cascades, and several geothermal hot spots which resemble parts of Yellowstone National Park. It also lacks the crowds of Yosemite and, surprisingly, guidebooks. Lassen receives a fair amount of coverage in two different hiking guides to national parks by authors John McKinney and Ann Marie Brown, but Tracy Salcedo-Chourre's book is the only complete hiking guide to the area. She is passionate about the park and it shows on every trail description. Unlike some Falcon Guide publications, this book has wonderful descriptions of destinations and just enough local and natural history to make it interesting. The 59 hikes described here range from very short nature walks to long (all day or overnight) treks. Route descriptions are very detailed and the maps are generally quite adequate. Salcedo-Chourre should also be commended on her frank admission that trail mileages are approximations and not precise. My only complaints about the book revolve around the fact that the field research for it was done in 1998 and 1999, and it needs a second edition. In the last year, the Park Service has spent a small fortune updating their interpretive displays (they are now the nicest in the national park system) and the signs for some of the interpretive walks have changed. Similarly, heavy snows in winter of 2006 destroyed much of the Sulphur Works trail and one ranger I talked to said there was a chance the Park Service would not rebuild it at all. Finally, while I think her route description for the Pacific Crest Trail's segment through the park was excellent, she did not list the access points for the trail, instead simply starting it at the northern border of the park and ending at the southern border. Neither point has trailhead parking. Still, this is an excellent guide to a fabulous park. It will be my first resource on my next visit to Lassen.