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| Recovery after fire |
Date: July 17, 2025
Place: Lassen Volcanic National Park, Mineral, California
Coordinates: 40.489122, -121.422815
Length: 5.5 miles
Level: strenuous, mainly because of trail conditions
July 19 was the last day of my family hiking group in Lassen Volcanic National Park, and our last hike was to Kings Creek Falls, a trail on which I posted here a few years ago. The group hiked well and as we were getting close to the end I was thinking what I should do after the group disbands. I had planned to stay an extra day and hike to the Terminal Geyser in the Warner Valley area of the park, but it looks like there would be plenty of time on this day too to squeeze one more hike before nightfall. When my friend, who joined the group with her son, had mentioned to me that she'd like to top off the trip with a swim in one of the parks lakes, I suggested Summit Lake. After a quick look at the map I made my choice. I asked my friend if she'd be willing to take me to Summit Lake and when she agreed I had decided on my second hike of the day - to hike to Kings Creek Falls from the back country, starting at Summit Lake.
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| Summit Lake |
I left my friend at the lake shore and faced my first challenge of the hike - finding the trailhead. The signs near Summit Lake didn't have that particular trailhead listed (unless I didn't look in the right place) and my map was a bit confusing. Eventually however, I figured out that I needed to get all the way to the south side of the Summit Lake Campground to where the trail begun.
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| My hike as captured by my GPS |
The first thing I noticed at the trailhead was a warning sign stating that the trail suffered great damage from the Dixie Fire and has not yet been maintained. Hikers were advised to have good path-finding skills. I couldn't help it, I groaned aloud. Only a month before I had to use my path-finding skills on a difficult unmaintained trail in the John Muir Wilderness and I wasn't keen on doing it again so soon.I didn't doubt my ability to do this hike, but path-finding can be time consuming and I had only so much daylight time left for the day and no gear to stay the night in the back country if I got stuck. Considering the relatively short distance of my planned hike I decided to go for it, thinking that if I did get stuck I could simply backtrack and hitch-hike my way back to the Kings Creek Falls parking area where I had left my car.
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| Summit Lake to Corral Meadow Trail |
The trail was easy enough to follow, at least in the beginning. I followed the trail into the wilderness along Summit Creek, the creek that drains Summit Lake. The trail was narrow but very clear to follow, at least for as long as it stretched near the creek. The lush vegetation was thick and rich in wildflowers.
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| Primrose Monkeyflower, Erythranthe primuloides |
I was very excited to see the Sierra mariposa lily blooming along the trail. I did know they bloomed near Summit Lake and I was happy to see the familiar local beauty.
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| Sierra Maripos Lily, Calochortus minimus |
The creek was narrow but flowing well and in some places it widened its flow sideways onto the trail. I slowed down, adjusting my steps to avoid stepping in the mud as much as possible. In minutes I gathered a bit of a winged following, and I was compelled to stop and apply some bug repellent.
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| Summit Creek Meadow |
A bit further into the hike the trail distanced from the creek and continued on much drier. After leaving the vicinity of Summit Lake I was well within the Dixie Fire affected area. The trees were all dead but the forest floor was covered with green, vigorous-looking plants.
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| Summit Lake to Corral Meadow Trail |
The plant community was definitely different away from the creek water. The purple color dominated among the wildflowers, and many of them were lupines - the first plants to pop up in disturbed places. Being of the legume family, they carry with them their own nitrogen fixing associates - the Rhizobacteria that live symbiotically inside nodules on the plant's roots.
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| Satin Lupine, Lupinus obtusilobus |
Another purple beauty that bloomed in large mats below the charred trees was the Sierra Penstemon, a species of beardtongue that thrives in the harder, drier plateaus up the California mountains.
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| Sierra Beardtongue, Penstemon heterodoxus |
I was also seeing some little birds. Not many birds, and they weren't very cooperative either. I tried my best to take photos but I didn't spend too much time on that.
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| Dark-eyed Junco |
The trail came closer to the creek again and I entered a small and very pretty meadow. The green grasses were pretty tall and towering above the grasses were even taller wildflowers.
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| California Cornlily, Veratrum californicum |
There were a few more muddy places where I needed to be careful of my footing but for the most part there wasn't any issue walking through this meadow.
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| Western Water Hemlock, Cicuta douglasii |
The wetter areas had nice bloom of the seep monkeyflower and other water-loving plants. I enjoyed the meadow colorful display.
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| Seep Monkeyflower, Erythranthe gutatta |
Once more the trail led me away from the creek and the lush meadow it supported. The trail cut through the charred forest, undulating along the soft curve of the ground.
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| Summit Lake to Corral Meadow Trail |
Once again I was walking through the pink and purple floral domain. There were the lupines and penstemons, but also the delicate wire lettuce which I remembered from my trip around Butte and Snag Lakes and up Prospect Peak two years beforehand.
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| Large-flowered Wirelettuce, Stephanomeria lactucina |
Here and there bloomed also wildflowers of other colors, such as the cobwebby paintbrush. I found them in small patches along the trail.
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| Cobwebby Paintbrush, Castilleja arachnoidea |
Every now and then I'd come across parts of the forest that had a few green, living trees. Some of the larger fire survivors had deeply charred bark, but they had pulled through and now had all the sunshine to themselves.
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| Summit Lake to Corral Meadow Trail |
Some of the other fire survivors were young trees. They were too large to have sprouted after the fire but they might have been to small to have caught it from the taller trees when the fire raged. Now they were racing upward, the quickest members of the new, recovering forest.
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| Fire Survivors |
There were more little birds active in the trees where there were some survivor trees. The birds weren't active only in the living trees but they did prefer these places.
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| Fox Sparrow |
The trail came by the creek again. This time the creek area wasn't flooded or muddy. In fact, I could probably hop across the narrow stream, but it was nice to have a log bridge over the water.
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| Summit Creek |
For a little while the trail followed the creek again, but somewhat above the water. I enjoyed the wildflowers display and the greenery that grew between the creek and the trail.
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| Anderson's Thistle, Cirsium andersonii |
I didn't need to see the mountain monardella to know that it was there - the minty smell of this lovely herb filled the air and my nostrils each time I brushed against one of these low shrubs.
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| Summit Lake to Corral Meadow Trail |
The mountain monardella bloom attracted many butterflies. I spent some time trying to capture the butterflies on camera but most of them were too hyperactive.
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| Great Basin Fritillary butterfly visiting Mountain Monardella, Monardella odoratissima |
Along with the mountain monardella bloomed the spreading dogbane, which grew in small patches. Pale cream was the color in the areas dominated by these two plants.
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| Spreading Dogbane, Apocynum androsaemifolium |
The trail was undulating up and down mild curves but for the most part I
was going downhill, following the thin stream of Summit Creek. At some point the creek curved away and once again I was walking through a relatively dry part of the burnt forest. There was lots of bloom there still - the soil had enough moisture retained from the winter snow.
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| Summit Lake to Corral Meadow Trail |
Here and there were small, greener areas, like mini-meadows. These were in shallow depressions in the soil, likely where the latest melting snow patches and longest lasting puddles were.
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| Summit Lake to Corral Meadow Trail |
The wildflowers I've seen blooming in these little 'mini-meadows' were different from those I've seen along other parts of the trail.
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| Common Selfheal, Prunella vulgaris |
A reddish-pink mat of tiny plants turned out to be a mat of a monkeyflower species. I remember having seen these blooming near Terrace Lake where I backpacked
a couple of years before.
It was easy to forget that my time was limited, facing the richness of life that I was seeing only four years after the devastating fire.
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| Western Marsh Cudweed, Gnaphalium palustre |
There were many wildflowers blooming in that burnt forest, but not all the colors came from flowers. Manzanita galls are bright red and make a very pretty decoration to the plant, matching the reddish color of its stems.
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| Manzanita galls |
The trail continued downhill at a bit steeper grade and I kept thinking that all the elevation I was now losing I'd have to ascend back up. I hoped it wouldn't be too difficult a climb. I reached a patch of forest that was miraculously spared by the fire. In the middle of the forest was another creek - a tributary of Kings Creek. It had a pretty decent flow and a log bridge on which I crossed to the other side.
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| Kings Creek Tributary |
The creek was almost invisible because of the thick and tall riparian vegetation that flanked it on both sides.
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| Common Yarrow, Achillea millefolium |
Most of the wildflowers that bloomed near that creek I have seen already in meadows earlier on the hike, but I've also seen here the gorgeous leopard lilies, like those that bloomed on the trail to Devil's Kitchen.
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| Leopard Lily, Lilium pardalinum |
The trail continued downhill past the tributary creek. The surviving tree stand left behind me, I once again walked through the charred remains of the forest. Here I paid attention also to the new generation that was coming up - the baby trees that germinated after the fire. I would love to see those baby pines and firs reach maturity and reestablish the beautiful forest that I remember adorning the slopes in Lassen Volcanic National Park.
I kept on the lookout for the trail intersection where I should be turning to go to Kings Creek Falls. I kept checking my navigator but I didn't need it to find it though - a brand new trail junction sign was there. Continuing south would lead me to Warner Valley, where I had planned to be on the morrow. On a different time I might hike it on a backpacking trip. Now I needed to head back uphill.
Following the Kings Creek Trail proved to be much more challenging. The path was very faint and often disrupted. Here I did make use of the navigator to head in the correct direction, but mostly I used my senses to tell where people have passed before me. I walked a bit slower than before but it didn't take me long to find Kings Creek.
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| Kings Creek Tributary |
I reached Kings Creek at a point of confluence with another, high flowing tributary. According to my map, the trail crossed the tributary and continued up the ridge between the that tributary and the main Kings Creek stream. When I came down to the creek side I found no obvious place to cross it, and no clear trail continuing on the other side. The creek itself seemed challenging to cross - the stream was pretty high and the water was jammed with dead trees and other debris. I couldn't help thinking that it was like a repeat of the challenging creek crossing I experienced only a month before on my way up the Baxter Pass Trail.
I walked up the creek bank, pushing my way through the thick vegetation, going up the slope and down to the creek again, until I found a spot where crossing was possible. I couldn't see a trail on the other side but the bank seemed climbable and I figured that once I'd be up there I could find the path. I resigned to the situation, switched my shoes to sandals (which I had the foresight to bring along) and waded carefully through the vegetation thicket and the debris-clogged creek.
Even through that ordeal I was paying attention to the lovely wildflowers that were blooming in the riparian thicket of that creek. I remembered the Fitweed from my hike to Ridge Lakes a year ago on my post-group camp additional day.
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| Fitweed, Corydalis caceana |
Some of the bushes I rubbed against on my way across the creek had fluffy white creatures attached to the underside of their leaves. These reminded me very much the cochineal bugs that I saw growing on beavertail cacti on a hike near Tucson a couple of years ago. They might be related, but I don't really know.
Finding the trail again was a bit of a challenge. I managed to ascend the south bank of the creek and then I sat down to wipe dry my feet and put on my hiking shoes again. The forest floor looked undisturbed ... almost. After moving a little in the direction where the navigator suggested that the trail was I could see evidence of people's passage before me. It wasn't enough to make a trail but it was enough for me to start following the faint footprints, due west.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
My senses were leading me in the right direction. Soon I came across a trail mark. It was an old trail mark - the tree had already grown some bark over it, but it was a proof that I was following the trail, even if it wasn't really visible on the ground.
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| Trail Sign |
There were other tell-tale signs that I was indeed walking on a trail other than the faint wearing of the ground. One very clear sign were fallen logs that a passage was sawed through them to allow people and stock to go through without having to hop over or go around them.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
There were many wildflowers along this trail as well. The woolly mule's ears I knew well from many previous hikes in Lassen Volcanic NP. Often it covers large open areas. Here, which became more like an open area only after the fire, there were only a few of them, here and there.
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| Woolly Mule's Ears, Wyethia mollis |
The pussypaws were more numerous but they were also harder to see - taller plants often obscured them.
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| One-seeded Pussypaws, calyptridium monospermum |
Looking at the ground where the wildflowers were it was easy to forget at times that I was walking through a forest that was devastated by a mega wildfire. There were many baby trees growing between their dead, burnt parents, but they were usually well dispersed. A few times however, I came across a crowded nursery patch of baby trees. This one in the photo below was impressively large. Many of these young trees will not reach maturity. Only the winners of the upward race towards the sun will and the rest will wither below their dominant siblings.
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| Conifer Nursery |
I've seen also star moss, which looked like little tiny palm trees. I'm
used to seeing moss in moister areas, but this patch seemed to be
thriving in a fairly dry spot.
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| Star Moss |
A large, pink monkeyflower shrub was blooming nearby. perhaps there was moisture in the ground still, and only the top soil was dry.
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| Blushing Monkeyflower, Erythranthe erubescens |
I didn't see much wildlife on this hike save for some small brown forest birds and many insects. There were also lots of spiders all around although I didn't get to see the spiders in person, only their delicate, lace-like webs.
All this time I was progressing steadily uphill. The trail was mostly pretty mild with only a few short steeper sections. My map informed me that I was getting close to the source of the tributary I had crossed earlier after turning onto the Kings Creek Trail. Sure enough - I soon entered a large meadow area that was covered in lush, green vegetation that was very thick and very tall. I couldn't see the creek itself but the soil beneath my shoes was very moist and muddy.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
There were so many wildflowers in that lovely meadow that my head got dizzy. I slowed down to a crawl in my attempt to avoid getting my shoes muddy and to get photos of all the flowers I was seeing there.
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| Paintbrush, Castilleja sp. |
Even flowers that I've seen earlier on this hike and on many other hikes in the area seemed prettier here in this meadow in the middle of the burnt forest.
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| Arrowleaf Groundsel, Senecio triangularis |
It was there that I got to see the first orchid on this trip. I usually see the white bog orchid along the Devil's Kitchen Trail but I haven't seen them there this year. I was very glad to see this beautiful royalty of wildflowers now.
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| White Bog Orchid, Platanthera dilatata |
There were lots of sneezeweed plants blooming in that meadow. Thankfully, they didn't live up to their name and I didn't sneeze even once when I passed by them.
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| Bigelow's Sneezeweed, Helenium bigelovii |
It was much easier to follow the trail through the meadow because it was very obvious where other people had passed there before me.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
I looked at the map again and then looked ahead. The trail that was ascending very mildly so far was about to steepen considerably. I had a good thousand feet of uphill to go up to Kings Creek Falls.
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| Common Cowparsnip, Heracleum maximum |
I was sorry for not having my backpacking equipment with me. I would have loved to stay the night at this lovely, colorful meadow.
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| Columbian Monkshood, Aconitum columbianum |
Little by little I ascended above that lovely meadow. It was quite large and it stretched uphill as well. The trail did not continue through that meadow but ascended onto the dry slope and through the burnt forest.
By that point I was already accustomed to the nuances of the the ground and had little difficulty following the path even in places where the trail was invisible or nearly so. Occasionally I'd see a trail mark nailed to a tree trunk, and some of them looked new, placed there after the big fire. Spending less time trying to figure out where I should go left me more time to look at wildflowers.
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| Crimson Columbine, Aquilegia formosa |
Most of the wildflowers I saw were blooming in open areas. Some however, were true forest plants, the species that thrive and bloom in the shade of healthy forests.
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| White-veined Wintergreen, Pyrola picta |
Past the large meadow the trail steepened considerably. There were a few switchbacks but for the most part it was a straight forward lugging uphill. About half way up I came upon the edge of the tributary that fed the tributary creek that I had passed. Once more there was thick vegetation to push through, but also running water and muddy section to cross. Theses weren't big but on the incline they were very slippery.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
Naturally, there were many wildflowers blooming there as well. Some of these wildflowers I've seen blooming along the Devil's Kitchen Trail a few days earlier.
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| Streambank Bird's-foot Trefoil, Hosackia oblongifolia |
In that sloped little meadow there was a mixture of colors, with the yellow, white, purple, pink and red all mixed up, neither dominating the others.
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| Broadleaf Lupine, Lupinus Latifolius |
It was the first place on this hike however, where I saw the fireweed blossoms. This surprised me because it is a very common mountain plant, common also in Lassen Volcanic NP.
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| Fireweed, Chamaenerion angustifolium |
I continued uphill past the wet headwaters area and the sloped meadow it supported. higher up the trail was on dry land again It also leveled a bit, going uphill still, but at a much milder slope.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
The pink and purple colors continued to dominate the drier parts of the
trail. Here however, the species changed from the
lupines and Penstemons to the spreading dogbane and to large mats of the woolly nama.
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| Woolly Nama, Nama lobbii |
The little forest birds kept being elusive. I didn't want to spend too much time tracking them down for a good photo but I couple of minutes here and there to document that the birds were indeed there.
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| Dark-eyed Junco |
Up on the ridge I finally got a view of the main Kings Creek again. It was rushing downhill below me on its way to meet with the Hot Springs Creek south of the park. I also noted how long the shadows of the trees were. The day was nearing its end.
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| Kings Creek |
I arrived at the observation balcony above Kings Creek Falls, where I have been only a few hours earlier that day. Considering how late it was I didn't hang there for long.
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| Kings Creek Falls |
I did need a short break though, so a little bit up the trail from Kings Creek Falls I sat down near a smaller cascade, ate the apple and nuts I brought along, and drank most of my water, knowing I had only about a mile before I reached my car.
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| Kings Creek |
The sun was coming down as I made my way uphill along Kings Creek. I have yet to write about the classic Kings Creek Falls loop that I hiked earlier with the group. Coming up that same trail a second time in one day didn't make it any less beautiful to me. This time however, I rushed ahead without stopping because the day was coming close to its end and I still needed to drive down to the campground.
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| Kings Creek |
The trail right by the cascading part of Kings Creek is a steep stair case carved in the volcanic rock. I charged the stairs going uphill with a vigor that matched the water rushing down the great, all natural water slide of Kings Creek.
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| Kings Creek |
I did pause briefly here and there though, unable to resist the urge to take more wildflower photos.
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| Mountain Spirea, Spirea splendens |
Some of these photos came out better now with the dimmer illumination of the late afternoon.
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| Mountain Pride, Penstemon newberryi |
The sunlight wasn't penetrating the canyon part of Kings Creek anymore but at the top of the stairs I could see that there was direct sunlight still and I picked up my pace.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
At the top of the stairs where the Kings Creek loop begins (and ends) I came upon an American robin who just caught himself some dinner.
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| American Robin |
From the loop's end the trail back to the parking area is fairly level with only mild undulation. I didn't expect to see people on the trail anymore, but there were a few still, including some that were only now going down to the falls.
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| Kings Creek Trail |
The few die hard hikers were not enough to bother the squirrels that were out and about, searching for food.
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| Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel |
I made it to the end of the trail with the last rays of direct sunlight illuminating the fleabane clamps at the base of the trailhead.
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| Subalpine Fleabane, Erigeron glacialis |
The sun disappeared below the horizon when I got to my car. Before starting my drive I changed my shoes to sandals once more, relieving my toes from the tight confinement they've been in since the morning (save for the cold crossing of the Kings Creek tributary). It was already dusk when I started my drive down the mountain, turning east to Chester. I had planned for tomorrow to finally see the last geothermal feature of the park that I have not yet seen - the Terminal Geyser.
