Lassen National Forest

Lassen National Forest is a 1,200,000-acre property bounded by the Modoc Plateau, the Central Valley, the Great Basin and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in northern California. In the heart of the forest is Lassen Volcanic National Park. Everywhere you see "Lassen," that's after pioneer Peter Lassen, an early emigrant to northern California who mined, ranched and promoted the area to newcomers in the 1850's.

Lassen National Forest offers many lakes, lava flows and cinder cones in addition to two major river systems. As a long-time supplier of lumber and timber products, only about 92,000 acres of the forest is considered old growth (meaning: never logged). The forest was formed in 1905 as one of the first National Forest Reserves. In 1915 Mount Lassen erupted and became the first volcanic eruption witnessed and photographed in the continental United States. As big as Mount Lassen is, a more ancient volcano named Mount Tehama was much larger and the remains of the final explosion of that mountain can be seen in the topography of the central parts of the forest and in the landscape of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Today, only Brokeoff Mountain remains as part of the ancient volcano and newer peaks have been pushed up around the edges of the caldera left after the volcano collapsed.