This point is just over 8,000 feet elevation, in the Hudsonian Life Zone. Here the mountain hemlock trees, with their graceful nodding tops, and the noisy grey, black, and white jay known as the Clark’s nutcracker, are most conspicuous and typical forms of life.
The smooth slopes on Ski Heil Peak behind Emerald Lake are unexcelled for skiing.
(0.3 mile)
CLARKS NUTCRACKER (grey with black and white)
MT. HEMLOCK (immature purple cones)
16 GLACIAL ERRATIC. This great isolated lava boulder, perched on the outside edge of the road just south of the Bumpass Hell parking area, was carried by a glacier from the southeast base of Lassen Peak and deposited here when the ice river melted. The rock on which it lies has a scratched, grooved, and highly polished surface. This is the work of rocks frozen into the base of the thick glacier, which moved over this area and into the valley below during the Ice Age. There are few places where such evidence of volcanic heat and glacial ice is found. Please park at [No. 17] if you wish to walk to the Glacial Erratic.
(0.1 mile)
