LONELY AT THE TOP

You have risen early, but not all that early, and hiked a couple of not-too-demanding miles. Now you stand in Devil’s Kitchen, an early morning landscape of dewy meadows, jumbled rocks and towering, moss-draped pines. All around you, great clouds of steam hiss from the Earth, and each time the wind shifts or the sun slips behind a cloud, the scene is recomposed and relighted, and the stink of sulfur deepens or fades.

But the eeriest aspect of the scene is this: In a national park, on a relatively popular path, after the closure of most schools for summer vacation, you are utterly alone.

The 10,457-foot Lassen Peak, among the southernmost mountains of the Cascade Range, rises four miles to the northwest. A marmot skitters through the brush, and deer cannot be far away. The nearest hiker is a mile behind you--and she’s your wife, temporarily horse-crazy and hurrying off down the trail in hopes of catching the 10 a.m. ride at the nearby Drakesbad Guest Ranch.

This is business as usual in Lassen. Here in the national park that rangers call “the one and lonely,” there are forests, snowcapped mountains, some of the most dramatic geothermal activity this side of Yellowstone, a much-admired fly-fishing lake, an old-fashioned guest ranch and, on an average summer day, fewer than 4,000 visitors scattered over about 150 square miles. For every visitor who finds his or her way into this park, more than 10 enter Yosemite, a few hours to the south. Aside from August, which Lassen Park spokesman Scott Isaacson calls “extremely busy,” Lassen is slow and lonely.

This has a lot to do with weather and location. Buried under deep snows through the winter, the park’s main artery and only paved road, the winding 30-mile-long Lassen Peak Highway, is targeted for opening on Memorial Day each year, but unpredictable weather frequently upsets those plans. A late storm this year knocked the opening back to June 12. The road usually closes by mid-October.

To reach the park, most visitors from outside Northern California either drive five hours north from San Francisco or fly in a commuter-size plane to Redding, then drive 50 miles east, as Mary Frances and I did recently.

Our first base of operations was Mineral, a wide spot in the road with a population of 90, a handful of lodges, and a location eight miles outside the park’s southwest entrance. We stayed at the passable $55-a-night Lassen Mineral Lodge for two nights (though next time we might try the nearby but off-the-highway Mill Creek Resort), then moved on to idyllic but pricey Drakesbad Guest Ranch for two more nights.

To fill the days in between, we drove lonely roads (paved and otherwise), hiked, floated, roasted marshmallows, squinted through geothermal steam and wished we had a canoe. We never got to some of the most intriguing names on our map, such as Painted Dunes and Fantastic Lava Beds (in the park’s northeast corner), and we didn’t spend much time around recreation-rich Lake Almanor either, even though it lies fewer than 20 miles south of the park. But we stayed busy.

The southwest corner of the park, where we began, includes two of Lassen’s most popular hikes. One is the trek into the steaming puddles and strewn rocks of Bumpass Hell (see John McKinney’s Hiking column on page L9). Even if you don’t make the hike--and we didn’t, because we heard that deep snowdrifts on the path had not yet melted away by late June, when we were there--the trail-head parking lot offers one of the park’s most scenic panoramas: a boulder in the foreground, an infinity of pointed pines covering the valley, plumes of steam above the roadside Sulphur Works area and other geothermally active pockets, the stark slopes of Lassen above.

The other highly popular hike, the Mill Creek Falls trail, begins just inside the park’s southeastern boundary, and we set out upon it on our first morning in the park. Starting at the parking lot of the Lassen Chalet (where a concessionaire offers meals, souvenirs and bathrooms), we meandered 2.3 miles across ridges and canyons until we reached an overlook above the falls. After pushing on 50 more yards, we finished our sack lunches and lazed awhile in the sun by the rocks above the falls. And we counted hikers. In our first 90 minutes on the trail, we tallied 13 other human beings.

In broader numerical measures, Lassen has been among California’s least visited national parks for years. In 1989, the Park Service counted 466,115 visitors to the place, a 6% decrease from the year before. Last year, when the summer season was shortened by late storms, rangers counted only 351,890 visitors.

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Surely, geography and weather are mostly responsible for Lassen’s low profile. But there are other theories. Anglers have been discouraged by park rangers’ gradual move over the last 15 years to stop stocking Lassen’s lakes with fish. And in 1993, an unprofitable ski lift near the park’s southwest boundary was removed after five decades of operation, possibly reducing visitation further during the park’s snowy winter months.

The story behind the park’s name isn’t an entirely inspirational yarn either. Danish immigrant Peter Lassen arrived at the southernmost Casade Mountains in the 1840s and was granted more than 22,000 acres by the Mexican government before the United States grabbed California. First Lassen tried to found a town, which failed. Then he tried to blaze a westward trail that would lead emigrants to the area, and failed. Then, after the discovery of gold in 1848, Lassen attempted various commercial ventures, which failed, and then set to prospecting, at which he failed. Along the way, he sold his land and helped promote the city of Susanville, 70 miles east of where the park lies. In 1869, still looking for gold, Lassen and a partner were murdered. The search for his killers . . . failed.

But the landscape is the reason to venture into a national park, and Lassen’s landscape today is even stranger and more diverse than it was during its namesake’s time. In a series of eruptions in 1914 and 1915, Lassen Peak sent up pre-atomic mushroom clouds that rose seven miles into the stratosphere. While thick vegetation survived all around, flows of lava and mud scoured many areas beneath Lassen Peak to an otherworldly bareness--hence such site names as Chaos Crags and Devastated Area. Until the trouble at Mt. St. Helens came along in 1980, Lassen’s was the most recent volcanic eruption in the continental United States.

In 1916, federal officials designated the area a national park. And volcanic aftermath continues. As recently as 1974, geological surveys warned of the potential for further volcanic side effects: Researchers predicted that enormous rock avalanches were possible above the park’s Manzanita Lake area, causing Park Service officials to close down a lodge, restaurant and several other facilities there. Several buildings have since resumed operation.

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From Lassen’s southwest corner, the park’s main road winds and climbs northward, rising to 8,000 feet, passing Emerald and Helen lakes, circling the base of Lassen Peak, and continuing past the Devastated Area, a stark, growth-free slope created by the lava and mudflows of Lassen’s 1915 eruption. At the park’s northwestern corner, the road reaches Manzanita Lake, a small and unusually placid bit of water that has become a favorite of fly fishermen.

The lake holds a natural fishery of brown and rainbow trout; all fishing is catch-and-release and a permit is required. On the afternoon we followed the flat 1.6-mile trail around the lake, perhaps three dozen fishermen stood or crouched silently along the shore and in the shallows.

Canada geese congregated among the tall, green reeds of a protected mating area. And at the lake store, a power outage had entered its second day, forcing the concessionaire to give away all his ice cream--bad news for him, in a park where summer highs reach the 80s, but all the better for us.

On our third day, we repositioned, and the park seemed to change shape.

Reloading the car, we drove from Mineral to the town of Chester, then headed by dirt road into the park’s central southern area and the only lodging within the park.

Drakesbad Guest Ranch has been in operation for more than 90 years, and stepping onto the property is something like tearing a century from your calendar. There are 19 rooms to rent, some of them upstairs in the main lodge, others free-standing cabins or duplexes on a long meadow. The pool is heated to Jacuzzi temperatures each night by hot spring water, and bathers step from the 45-degree night air into the Jacuzzi’s warmth while stars hang above, deer graze a few yards away in the meadow, and steam clouds drift above the water. There are worse ways to pass an evening, and as it happened, the evening Mary Frances and I passed that way was our anniversary.

But I think Drakesbad has a transformative power for guests without occasions to celebrate too: It makes a national park feel like a private playground.

Settled in the 19th century by a man named Drake (Drakesbad refers to Drake’s bath in German), it was taken over in 1900 by the Sifford family, who, in those early years, charged guests $2 daily. In 1958, heir Roy D. Sifford sold the property to the National Park Service, though he used the ranch regularly until his death in 1991.

The lodge’s common area is dominated by a pot-bellied stove and an old stone fireplace, and cluttered with puzzles, old National Geographic magazines, children’s games, reading chairs, half a dozen propane lamps dangling from the wood-beamed ceiling, a telescope and the ranch’s lone telephone. Most of the guest rooms are lighted only by kerosene lantern (although concerns over fire safety led to the installation of electric lights in the lodge rooms this month). All meals are announced with the ringing of a bell, but whenever you like, you can grab a snack in the lodge, or a beer or pop from the ice buckets on the porch. Just remember to sign the honor-system clipboard.

Meanwhile, a dozen horses wait in the stable and three guided rides go out daily. Those who don’t ride can lounge on the porch, laze in the hammock or head off on a hike. On the afternoon after our hike to Devil’s Kitchen, we saddled up and joined a ride past Boiling Springs Lake to perpetually blowing Terminal Geyser.

Drakesbad is not cheap: about $100 per person per night, meals included, riding excluded. But during the short summer season that it’s open, the place is usually full. Many families have been reserving the same week for more than a decade, and newcomers usually have to slip in on nights of lower demand.

Service is genial and alert, and clearly the result of careful training by on-site managers Ed and Billie Fiebiger (he’s originally from Germany; she’s from Switzerland), who spent 14 years running another Northern California lodge before they arrived at Drakesbad in 1990.

Meals aren’t fussy and there’s usually just one meat entree offered per night, but the food is a definite cut above campfire grub. One typical night, there was black bean soup and almond-crusted pork loin with roasted potatoes and tiramisu for dessert. At every meal, there’s a vegetarian alternative. Every night after dinner (if there’s no rain), there’s marshmallow-roasting over a campfire outside the lodge.

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It was on our last night around the fire, after a day of hiking and riding and floating around in the geothermally heated pool, that a veteran Drakesbad guest, a man who’d been coming from the Sacramento area with his family for half a dozen years, offered me a sort of initiation.

“Now,” he said, “you only need to remember the golden rule: You can’t tell anybody else about this place. Just say you went to a great place and forgot where it was. Or just say it’s about 80 miles north of Mono Lake and leave it at that.”

I nodded and laughed. But behind my back, I had my fingers crossed.

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GUIDEBOOK: The Lay of Lassen

Getting there: Lassen lies east of Redding and north of Chico in Northern California. The nearest airport to the park is Redding, and travelers can get there by flying to San Francisco, then connecting via United Express; restricted fares begin at $164 round trip.

For drivers, Lassen Volcanic National Park’s southwest entrance is 230 miles northeast of San Francisco (about a five hour drive); about 135 miles northwest of Reno; and 74 miles southeast of Redding, via Interstate 5 south to Red Bluff and California 36 east. The park is about 180 miles (a four-hour drive) north of Sacramento. The park’s northwest entrance is 45 miles east of Redding on California 44.

Where to stay: Only lodging inside the park is Drakesbad Guest Ranch (Warner Valley Road, 17 miles northwest of Chester via mostly dirt road), open this year until Oct. 13. To call when it is open, dial the AT&T; long-distance operator and ask for Drakesbad toll station No. 2 through Susanville, Calif.; to call during other months or ask for brochures, dial (916) 529-1512. Nineteen rooms and cabins, dining room, geothermally heated pool, stables. Rates: $92.50-$105 per adult per day, double occupancy; $59 per day for children 2-11; meals included. Horseback riding runs $24 for first hour, $18 for each following hour..

The Bidwell House (1 Main St., Chester; tel. [916] 258-3338) is a B&B; in a restored home built in 1901 with 13 rooms and one cottage. Double rooms: $65-$153 nightly. Mill Creek Resort (1 Highway 172, Mill Creek; tel. [916] 595-4449), tucked into the forest a few miles off California 36, has nine cabins with kitchenettes, coffee shop, grocery, campsites and RV spaces. Cabins for two: $40-$60. Lassen Mineral Lodge (P.O. Box 160, Mineral; tel. [916] 595-4422) offers 20 rooms (two kitchenettes), restaurant, bar, pool and store. Rooms for two: $55-$70.

For more information: Lassen Volcanic National Park, Mineral, CA 96063; tel. (916) 595-4444). Also, the Shasta Cascade Wonderland Assn., 14250 Holiday Road, Redding, CA 96003; tel. (800) 474-2782.

--C.R.