Southwest Walk-in Campground — Lassen Volcanic National Park

Winter and Spring are harsh at Lassen Volcanic. When we originally planned our year-long trip to all of the national parks, we did our best to avoid the massive snow packs that limit accessibility to the parks. Sometimes, though, this was unavoidable.

We found out that when the park is covered in snow, it is possible to park overnight at the visitor center and camp in the snow just adjacent to the lot. Since the park is not the quickest to drive to, we decided this was a good option.

We ended up just setting up our small air mattress in the back of our car, but several others were camping on the snow nearby. Use of the visitor center is possible during your stay, including 24-hour access to the vestibule with great indoor restrooms.

During our time in Lassen Volcanic, we learned about the park at the visitor center, hiked as far as we could in the snow along the road, and enjoyed a ranger-led snowshoe tour.

You can read much more about our five days in the park on our blog: Switchback Kids (Lassen Volcanic)

A long slog up to the Park Entrance, and I arrived at the Visitor Center 5 minutes before the Cafe closed, quick enough to get some hardboiled eggs, jerky, a Snickers, and some hot jasmine green tea. The beer was tempting, but I was dehydrated enough to know it was a terrible idea. The coffee and breakfast sandwich from the cafe the next morning were exactly what I needed, but probably not objectively "good".

I went back out to the parking lot to choose my camping site. The sites are "walk-in" which varies from maybe 50 ft to 200 ft from the parking lot. There is a little berm, which a couple sites sit on top of, and have a beautiful view of Brokeoff Mountain, but also the parking lot. I chose to roll my bike a bit down the hill and a less stunning but still beautiful view of the ridges to the east. Very tightly packed, but different levels and trees kept it from being too bad. I think there was a couple on either side of me, but we were all quiet and tucked into our tents before sundown at 8pm.

There was a bearbox, but it was even more critical to use due to the chipmunks, which attacked one of the energy gel packs that I didn't put in while I went to the bathroom. It bit a hole in the packet, and didn't even stick around to lap up all of the sticky mess. Not a fan. To be fair, it was seeing the chipmunks in the first place that made me put my food in the bear box before heading to the bathroom, so I can only blame myself for not being hypervigilant.

A storm was passing to the south and the wind in the trees was strong but calming, but occasionally the wind would make it to ground level, and kick up the dust from the ground, whipping it through my tent, making it hard to breathe. I think that happened two or three times that night.

The toilets were flush, but the sinks only had cold water, at the bathrooms immediately adjacent to the camp. The Visitor Center just one large parking lot away had hot and cold water, and hand dryers. Also, electrical sockets available next to a bench, for those of us who might need to charge our phones and/or GPS.