In the latest sign that America’s national park system is beginning to welcome back visitors, Lassen Volcanic National Park, home of the only volcano other than Mount St. Helens in the Lower 48 states to erupt in the 20th century, reopened its gates Friday.
The park, located in northeastern California, 45 minutes east of Redding, closed March 27 as the coronavirus pandemic spread.
Officials at the 106,000-acre park, a unique landscape of hot springs, pine forests, bubbling mud pits, craters and wildflower meadows, reopened hiking trails, the main road through the park, parking lots and bathrooms on Friday morning, and planned to open campgrounds starting Monday. Entrance fees were being collected.
The park’s two visitor centers will remain closed for at least another several weeks to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and for now, there is no food or gas available for sale in the park, they said.
“We are in the more rural area of Northern California where there are relatively few cases,” said Jim Richardson, Lassen’s superintendent. “By and large the public has paid attention to physical distancing. The majority of our visitors are local.
“We’re open,” he added. “We’re happy to be open. But we’re not encouraging people to come from long distances.”
On Thursday, health officials in Lassen County, which until last week had no cases of COVID-19, ordered some new restrictions, including ending dine-in service at restaurants, after five cases surfaced in the rural county. Lassen park is located in four counties.
Park officials say they will not require visitors to wear masks, but strongly encourage it when they interact with rangers and other park employees, most of whom will be wearing masks.
“Our front-line staff sees hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors from around the world daily,” said Kevin Sweeney, Lassen’s chief of interpretation. “They are ready to go. They have been sitting on the sidelines for 70 days. But there is a tinge of anxiety as we’re all working through this.”
Other national parks in California are part of the reopening trend. Last Saturday, Pinnacles National Park, in rural San Benito County south of Hollister, reopened to day use visitors, although parking lots inside the park remain closed for a few more weeks, and visitors are encouraged to be dropped off at the gate with bicycles, although some are parking cars along adjacent roadways and venturing in.
Redwood National Park, in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, reopened parking lots, trail heads and bathrooms last Thursday. Campgrounds and visitor centers there remain closed. Visitation was steady, including a fair number of vehicles with out-of-state plates, rangers reported.
“Certainly there have been some people who are frustrated to not be able to do all the things they could before, but this week things seem to be going pretty well,” said Candace Tinkler, chief of interpretation at Redwood National Park.
Earlier this month Joshua Tree National Park in the California desert also reopened.
Some of the most famous national parks in California, including Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon, are drafting reopening plans and expecting to open in the next few weeks, although no exact dates have been set yet. Key features of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, based in San Francisco, including Alcatraz Island, remain closed.
Across the country, Yellowstone, Everglades and Grand Canyon national parks have partially reopened. Big Bend in Texas and Acadia National Park in Maine are scheduled to reopen Monday. At most reopened parks, hotels, restaurants and some campgrounds remain closed.
Although not as well known as Yosemite or Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Lassen Volcanic National Park is a colorful landscape that draws about 500,000 visitors a year. First set aside for protection by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, the park is home to Lassen Peak, a 10,457-foot active volcano. Its last major eruption was in 1915, which made national news, although the peak, the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range, erupted about 400 times in smaller ways between 1914 and 1921.
The park is popular in summer with backpackers and campers. In winter, when its main road is buried under deep snow, it remains open for snowshoeing and back-country skiing.
“There’s a lot of solace to be found in the park,” Sweeney said. “I know that folks are ready to sit on top of a mountain quietly for a couple of hours. That fixes a lot of things.”
