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3D map with Lassen Peak and Bumpass Hell Trail |
Boiling pools steaming near the boardwalk |
Bumpass Hell, named after ill-fated
K. V. Bumpass (1809-1885),
is a boardwalk-accessible
16-acre hydrothermal area in
Lassen Volcanic National Park, California.
A Lassen Volcanic terrain model in the
Loomis Museum
features the
park's natural sites and their road and trail connections.
The left-side picture above shows a section of this raised-relief
map tracing
Lassen Peak Trail
and the popular
Bumpass Hell Trail,
which begins next to
Lake Helen
and leads
over a saddle into the colorful and smelling world of hot springs,
mudpots and fumaroles.
The right pictures shows pools of boiling water belonging to the
over 75 hydrothermal features there, through which
heated groundwater
and gases are escaping into the atmosphere. The groundwater deep
below the fractured surface (over which you are guided when visiting
Bumpass Hell)
is heated by chambered magma that fed the eruptions of Lassen
Peak and its nearby volcanic companions.
One furnace, one system is what an on-site
interpretive panel is pointing out. And another panel explains:
Bumpass Hell occupies the old eroded vent of a dormant dome volcano— Bumpass Mountain.
