The name is Maidu, from the people who lived on these slopes long before anyone surveyed them, and it means Snow Mountain. Kohm Yah-mah-nee is the visitor centre at the southwest entrance of Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California, a modern building of stone and timber set among tall conifers. It is a good first stop for the road through the park: you can look at the displays, ask the rangers about conditions on the upper road, and take a look at a model of the volcano before you see the real thing.
Lassen Peak is the southernmost volcano of the Cascade chain, the same line that holds Mount St. Helens, Rainier and Hood. It is a lava dome, one of the largest of its kind in the world, and it erupted repeatedly between 1914 and 1917, throwing ash across the region and flattening forest on its flank. That activity led to the creation of the park in 1916. Around it, you can still find steaming vents, bubbling mud pots and turquoise lakes, with Bumpass Hell, the largest hydrothermal area in the park, a short hike from the road.
The park highway crosses the whole area in about thirty miles, climbing past meadows and volcanic rubble to a high point of around eighty-five hundred feet, then dropping toward the north. It is smooth, with easy bends, wide pull-outs and plenty of views, and traffic is light compared with better-known parks. Because of the heavy snowfall, the upper road is closed for much of the year, typically from late autumn until late spring or early summer, and snowbanks can still line it in June, so check the status first.
Services are limited. Pack lunch, water and a warm layer. The air smells of sulphur near the thermal areas and of resin among the pines, and mosquitoes can be thick in the wet meadows in early summer. Autumn is lovely, with golden light and few visitors, and the road can be a pleasure to ride when the weather holds.