Bumpass Hell

We arrived at the Lake Oroville Bed and Breakfast last night - three miles or so up a dirt road on top of a mountain overlooking Lake Oroville. Given the horrible traffic snarls at Cordelia Junction (where Interstates 680 and 80 meet) and the fact that we had to detour through Napa, we made amazingly good time.

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary - and the anniversary of the beginning of many adventures! We decided to catch our bearings and do our big hike at Feather Falls tomorrow. But what to do today?

We decided to drive up to Mt. Lassen, the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range, and so a short hike to Bumpass Hell, an area with much geothermal activity. I had not been to Bumpass Hell since I was about 10 years old on one of our family camping trips. Duane had never been there. But after our recent trip to Yellowstone National Park, we though it would be interesting to see more geothermals.

Since we didn't want to do a long hike today - the big one being tomorrow - we decided to start from Lake Helen. In this direction it's a short three mile hike, but with a good bit of elevation change (near Bumpass Hell) for the distance. There are longer ways to include Bumpass Hell in a hike, if you include Cold Boiling Lake or Crumbaugh Lake, but that was a significantly longer hike and we wanted to save ourselves for tomorrow.

The trail follows a fairly level ridge line for about the first mile. Then it begins to descend in a series of steep switchbacks down to Bumpass Hell, where there are several mudpots, one of the world's largest fumeroles, and a couple large hot springs. The geothermal area is named after Kendall Vanhook Bumpass, who used to guide people on tours of the area until he lost his leg:

Our guide, after cautioning us to be careful where we stepped, that the surface was treacherous, suddenly concluded with Virgil that the "descent to Hell was easy" for stepping on a slight inequality in the ground he broke through the crust and plunged his leg into the boiling mud beneath, which clinging to his limb burned him severely. If our guide had been a profane man I think he would have cursed a little; as it was I think his silence was owing to his inability to do the subject justice...

Editor, Red Bluff Independent, 1865

I think I would have cursed a lot (and asked forgiveness later)! The National Park Service has provided boardwalks for a safer experience and this is now a good family hike. Indeed, we saw several families with toddlers, a few of whom were crying because they either didn't like the smell or the incline back up the hill and out of Bumpass Hell.

We arrived back at the parking lot a couple of hours after we started, all warmed up and ready for tomorrow's hike to Feather Falls!