SENECIO (yellow)
6 ELEVATION 7,000 FEET. Just ahead is a magnificent specimen of western white pine. Being one of the white pine group, it has five needles in a bundle. Its cone is about ⅓ the size of its near relative of lower (Transition Life Zone) elevations, the sugar pine. Its limbs grow far down on the trunk because they get plenty of light for the manufacture of food. Shading in dense forests causes a sloughing off of lower limbs, resulting in natural pruning.
(0.4 mile)
WESTERN WHITE PINE (five needles)
Mature Cone, 6 in. Young Cones and Foliage
7 BROKEOFF MOUNTAIN, the second highest peak in the park. The volcanic lava and ash layers are abruptly broken off on the north side, hence the name “Brokeoff”. This mountain is a flank remnant of ancestral Mount Tehama which once towered more than 1,000 feet higher than Lassen Peak. Tehama was a composite, or strato-type volcano like Mt. Shasta. It was destroyed by a series of cracks, called faults, which cut Tehama into huge blocks. These sunk, causing collapse of the great mountain. Mt. Conard to the southeast, and the ridge between Brokeoff and Lassen Peak, are also remnants of the Tehama rim, all dipping away from the center of the old volcano.
On the southeast horizon are the Sierra Nevada, with Childs Meadow closer in. To the north is the ragged top of Diamond Peak with a natural window through the rocks on the upper right near the skyline.
(0.6 mile)
8 DIAMOND POINT, on the southeast flank of Diamond Peak. This rock is volcanic agglomerate, a mass of volcanic ejecta which became stuck together by small amounts of still molten lava. Nearby is one of the volcanic vents of ancestral Mt. Tehama. The material on top of Diamond Peak is explosive debris slightly consolidated by the cementing action of volcanic ash and is called tuff. It has weathered into very rough and rugged forms.
There is an excellent view of Mt. Conard.