Butte Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park

View of Mt. Lassen from inside the crater of  Cinder Cone,
Aug 2016.

Except perhaps for Redwood National Park, I've been to Lassen more times than any park in the National Park System. Thursday the 25^th of August was the official one hundredth birthday of the NPS. Lassen too is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. But can a few trips alone do justice to any of the west’s marvelous parks? The weekend following the centennial birthday party, I visited a new corner of Lassen: the northeasterly Butte Lake.

Butte Lake lies east of Mt. Lassen, on the dryer side of the Cascades. The roads were dusty and pines dominated the landscape, a clue to the presence of a drier landscape on the eastern side of the park. The lake is at just over 6000 ft elevation and is presently sort of sickle shaped. It may have been larger at some point in the past. The southwest shore is comprised of heaps of jagged black lava rock that come right to the shore, part of the Fantastic Lava Beds. When this lava flow was deposited, it perhaps buried part of the more extensive lake. Only a few willows or other plants have been able to become established in the poorly developed soils among the dark unforgiving volcanic rubble.

Persicaria (left) and Sagittaria (right) in Butte Lake.

I kayaked around some of the northern end of the lake. Visibility wasn't great, and the water had a greenish hue probably due to plankton or other suspended particulates in the water. But it was refreshingly cool, which was very welcome given the dry and dusty surrounding landscape. Some of the shores supported tiny wetlands comprised of typical marsh plants such as Juncus (a rush) and Carex (a sedge). In the shallows at the edge of the lake there were also submerged aquatic plants, such as the floating Persicaria. A few of them displayed short spikes of pink flowers above the water surface. Intermixed, but in less abundance, were the floating arrowhead-shaped leaves of Sagittaria. At the tiny wetland near the boat launch, dragonflies and wasps were abundant. Water striders balanced on the surface tension of the water, distorting the surface and thereby leaving unusual shadows on the muddy bottom. 

To the south of Butte Lake, lies the conical Cinder Cone, one of the types of volcanoes contained in the park. It is a dark grey heap of barren gravel and rubble, set cleanly on the Lassen landscape like a pile of sugar dispensed from a heavenly hand. A hiking trail leads from Butte Lake to the east side of the mountain, rising quite steeply from the base up to the rim of the crater. Incredibly, a few trees have taken root on the outside of the cinder cone, where no real soil seems imaginable. A larger number of conifers can be found just inside the lip of the rim where water possibly collects and the wind may be less harsh. The base of the crater is perhaps a hundred meters below the rim, the interior shaped like a funnel inside the mountain.

The Milky Way, with a silhouette of Cinder Cone at bottom
center.

Saturday night after the darkening sky began to reveal an abundance of stars I ventured out to the rubble volcanic barrens next to the lake to photograph the sky. During about an hour and a half of photography, I noted some half dozen to a dozen shooting stars. The Milky Way spread in a luminous arc above, a wide ribbon stretching from south to north across the sky busy with so many stars.

References

US Geological Survey. 1995. Prospect Peak, CA. 1:24000 topographic map.

Lake Helen and Lassen Peak.

Shadow from a water strider on the bottom of Butte Lake.