Boiling water makes Lassen Volcanic National Park special. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

Hot water is one thing Lassen Volcanic National Park is well known for. Not water to soak in, but water to appreciate from a bit of distance. It’s scalding hot.

The visitors center has a wealth of information about all the bubbling, boiling and gurgling going on.

“As rainwater and snow seeps through porous volcanic soil it trickles down to rocks heated by a chamber of molten or partially molten magma. Once water becomes super-heated, under intense pressure it works its way back up to the earth’s surface as steam, a boiling pool of water or bubbling pots of mud,” a sign reads.

These hot spots are scattered throughout the park. The smell of sulfur is a tall-tell sign hot water is nearby.

I few years ago I had the opportunity to hike to Boiling Springs Lake. I would put this on your to-do list. I had never seen a boiling lake before. The water is a consistent 125 degrees.

Last month I toured the visitors center again with some friends. It’s chock full of interesting things about the park. It seems appropriate to have been there in August, which marked this park’s 100th birthday. President Woodrow Wilson designated Lassen as the country’s 15th national park.

Rocks are stained from the sulfuric water at Lassen Park. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

Not far from the center is an opportunity to walk close to these boiling pools of water. Sulphur Works is “named for sulfur-mining operations at the site in 1865, at one time Sulphur Works also offered hot mineral baths. In 1951 the National Park Service acquired Sulphur Works to protect one of the park’s most dynamic and accessible hydrothermal features.”

Steam vents, called fumaroles, are here as well as mudpots and boiling springs.

NASA even has in interest in all of this.

“Researchers from NASA and academia are working together in Lassen to study microorganisms that thrive in water too hot for humans to touch. They can tell us about the first organisms on Earth, as well as the potential for life to have existed on Mars or other bodies in our solar system. The science that explores for life elsewhere in the universe is called astrobiology,” a sign reads.