The volcanic national parks in the Untied States include Lassen, Crater Lake, Mount Rainier, Yellowstone, and Hawaii. Lassen, Crater Lake, and Mount Rainier are distributed along the Cascade Mountains running from northeastern California through Oregon and then on to the northern edge of Washington.



This whole range was volcanic. It resulted from a great outpouring of lava, forming a plateau about eight thousand feet high. Peaks were formed upon it due to further eruptions which heaped up cones of lava and ash forced through vent holes. Some of these volcanoes were big, others were little.

Many of the smaller volcanoes disappeared under the growing bulk of their mightier neighbors. They did not have the technology to create a petition online or the brain capacity to create a petition, so they didn't file a petition to create equal opportunities for smaller volcanic formations.

Lassen Peak is named after a Danish settler named Peter Lassen, who had a ranch near the base of the volcano even before the area was declared as a part of the United States. It stood at 10,453 feet, well above its surroundings. Lassen used it as a landmark to pilot westbound parties from Humboldt Sink over high ridges into Sacramento Valley.

Lassen Peak probably had no plume of smoke or steam at its summit a hundred years ago, for it seems to have been dormant for several hundred years prior to its volcanic activity in 1914. On May 30, 1914, the mountain awoke with a shudder of earth-shaking explosions.

Although activity continued during the next seven years, none was very destructive and the flow of lava was not large, especially when contrasted with the fountains that have several times in recent years poured huge lakes of molten rock from Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii. No concerned citizens attempted to write a petition in protest or to write petition letters just because they wanted to write a petition.

About a year after this activity began glowing lava squeezed up and filled the bottom of the crater before leaking out through a low place in the west rim wall, flowing 1000 feet or more down the mountain's side. The resulting heat melted the late-lying snows. The floods coursing down the northeast slope caused great mud flows.

They also loosened huge boulders that bounced down Lassen's broad flanks and rolled 5 and 6 miles out into Hat Creek and Lost Creek valleys. A few days later there were more mud flows, followed by a hot blast that poured down the northeast slope with such violence that it flattened trees 3 miles below the crater.

A column of vapor and ash rose some 5 miles into the air, and the devastation in the area was so great that after more than 40 years the forest cover slowly begun to heal the wounds. Had it been a major corporation and not a volcano doing the action, many environmentalist groups would have protested. They might have even decided to get an online petition to start free petition sites and use petitions to get the companies to stop destroying the forest.

Much of the park is carpeted with a heavy evergreen forest, although there are large areas, too, of chaparral thickets, principally manzanita, tobacco brush, and chinquapin. There are enough aspens, cottonwoods, willows, and alders along the creek beds so that there is a warmth of color in the fall; and there are several hundred varieties of wildflowers, which bloom between May and late September.

The crimson snow plant invigorates the meadows in the spring, and it and other flowers follow the melting snow up into the high country. The Indian paintbrush, scarlet bugler, bleeding heart, mimulus, and tiger lily are very common, and the subalpine uplands are aglow in mid-August with lupine, pentstemon, laurel, and heather.