Lassen National Forest

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Lassen National Forest covers about 1.2 million acres of northeastern California, and it earns its nickname -- the Forest Service calls this the Crossroads of California, because four big landscapes collide here. Sierra Nevada granite comes up from the south, Cascade and Modoc Plateau lava spreads across the middle, and the Great Basin's sagebrush and juniper run in from the dry east. You can drive from pine forest to black lava beds to open sage country in a morning. The forest wraps around Lassen Volcanic National Park on nearly every side without taking it in -- the park is its own outfit -- and the headquarters is over in Susanville. One thing worth knowing before you read a map: the boundary drawn around a national forest is bigger than the forest itself, and a good share of what's inside the lines here is private ground.

History

The country started down the road to becoming a national forest in 1905, when the Lassen Peak Forest Reserve was set aside; by around 1908 it had taken its shape as Lassen National Forest, picking up part of the old Diamond Mountain reserve along the way (other pieces of that one went to neighboring forests). The name goes back to Peter Lassen, a Danish-born blacksmith turned pioneer who guided emigrant wagon trains and gave his name to the Lassen Trail, the 1848 cutoff that brought people through this country. The Nobles Emigrant Trail crosses the region too, but that one belongs to William Nobles, who laid it out in the early 1850s -- a different man and a later route. Long before any of that, this was home to the Yahi, Maidu, Atsugewi, and neighboring peoples. The most famous story here is Ishi's: the last known member of the Yahi, he walked out of these foothills near Oroville in 1911 after years of hiding, and the wilderness on the forest's southwest side now carries his name.

Wildlife & plants

Black bears are here and worth respecting -- keep your food put away. Mule deer are the animal this country is really known for: the East Tehama herd, one of California's big migratory herds, winters down in the foothills including the Ishi Wilderness and climbs back up as the snow goes. Mountain lions are around; you'll read them in tracks long before you see one. Head to the dry east side and it starts feeling like the Great Basin -- pronghorn out on the sage flats. Bald eagles and ospreys work the bigger water, and Eagle Lake is a good place to look for eagles. The fish are the draw for a lot of people: Hat Creek is a legendary spring-creek trout stream, and Eagle Lake has its own endemic rainbow trout. As for the trees, you climb through ponderosa and Jeffrey pine into white and red fir and incense cedar, and drop east into juniper and sagebrush.

Notable features

Lassen Peak, the namesake, is 10,457 feet and the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range -- but it's in the adjoining national park, not on the forest. It erupted from 1914 to 1917, with the big blast in May 1915. The forest's own high point is Crater Peak, about 8,677 feet, in the Thousand Lakes Wilderness -- one of three wildernesses here alongside Caribou and Ishi. Hat Creek Rim is the landmark most travelers meet: a long lava escarpment with enormous views, crossed by the Pacific Crest Trail on one of the longest dry stretches in California, often talked about as roughly 30 waterless miles. Down in the valley below it, Hat Creek runs as a spring creek and was California's first designated Wild Trout water. Over on the east side is Eagle Lake -- the second-largest natural lake lying entirely within California, and an alkaline one -- managed jointly by the forest, the BLM, and private landowners around the shore. Lake Almanor, a big PG&E reservoir, sits on the forest's southern edge, and the Bizz Johnson National Recreation Trail runs about 25 miles of old railroad grade up the Susan River canyon out of Susanville, run jointly by the forest and the BLM.

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Acreage is the area inside this forest’s administrative boundary (U.S. Forest Service), which takes in private land as well. National Forest System land inside it is usually less.

Lassen National Forest sits at what the Forest Service calls the Crossroads of California -- about 1.2 million acres in the northeast corner of the state where the granite of the Sierra Nevada, the lava of the Cascades and the Modoc Plateau, and the sagebrush of the Great Basin all run into each other. It wraps around Lassen Volcanic National Park without containing it, so you get the volcano country -- lava tubes you can walk through, cinder and rimrock, spring creeks -- on national forest land. Fair warning: the 2021 Dixie Fire burned large parts of this forest, and the burn scars are a big part of the drive now.

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Cool to know

You can walk through a lava tube here. Subway Cave, near Old Station, is a self-guided cave about a third of a mile long -- no ticket, no guide, just bring your own light and a jacket, because it stays cold in there all summer. It's the roof of an old lava flow that drained out from underneath.
There's a SETI listening post on this forest. The Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory -- a field of dishes pointed at the sky looking for a signal from somebody else -- sits on national forest land in Hat Creek Valley under a special-use permit. It's a research facility, not a public recreation site, but you're camping on the same forest.
Eagle Lake's trout are their own thing. The lake is alkaline enough that most trout couldn't handle it, but the Eagle Lake rainbow evolved to live in that water -- a strain found naturally nowhere else, and one California has gone to some trouble to keep going.
The Pacific Crest Trail's crossing of Hat Creek Rim is the stretch hikers complain about most in northern California: a long, hot, exposed lava bench with no reliable water, commonly reckoned at around 30 miles. The views out toward Lassen Peak and Mount Shasta are the payment.

Camps are sourced from public U.S. Forest Service recreation data and have not been personally visited. Roads shown are Forest Service passenger-car routes (maintenance level 3–5) and may be seasonal or gated. Always confirm access, fees and fire rules with the ranger district before you go. Found a fee where we show free? Tell us on the contact page.