Lassen Volcanic National Park United States

Legendary

All four types of volcano can be found here including the largest plug dome volcano in the world.

Photo by Jeff Hollett

Earth has four main kinds of volcanoes. All four sit inside this one park.

Lassen Peak is a plug dome, formed when thick lava pushed up and stiffened rather than flowing away. Nearby, Prospect Peak is a shield volcano, Cinder Cone is a cinder cone, and Brokeoff is what's left of a composite volcano.

Lassen Peak is the largest plug dome volcano in the world. It rises 10,457 feet at the southern end of the Cascade Range.

That range runs north from here into Canada and includes far taller volcanoes. Mount Rainier in Washington is the tallest of them all, at 14,411 feet.

Lassen made its own history in 1915. The mountain had been quiet for centuries when it started erupting in May 1914.

On May 22, 1915, it blew hard. A column of ash and gas shot more than 30,000 feet into the sky and was visible from 150 miles away.

The blast tore away part of the mountain's east face. A wall of hot ash, rock, and gas raced downhill and flattened forests for miles.

Nobody knew a volcano could do that in modern America. Newspapers across the country followed the story.

Congress acted quickly. On August 9, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill making it a national park.

It was the last volcanic eruption in the lower 48 states until Mount St. Helens in 1980. The ground here is still hot.

Boiling mud pots bubble, steam vents hiss, and pools of water reach dangerous temperatures. Stay on the boardwalks, because people have been badly burned stepping off them.

Walk the boardwalk trail through Bumpass Hell, the park's largest hydrothermal area. Drive the main park road past lava flows and alpine lakes. Hike to the summit of Lassen Peak if you're up for it, and look down into the crater of a volcano that erupted just over a century ago.