Cinder Cone Trail

Cinder Cone Trail is a four-mile out-and-back from Butte Lake to the summit rim and back. Allow about three hours for 846 feet of elevation change, from roughly 6,061 feet at the trailhead to 6,907 feet at the top. The walk starts gently, but the final climb is steep on loose, sand-like cinders. If you want a shorter outing, the walk to the cone’s base and back is 2.4 miles; that skips the part that makes this hike unusual.

From the boat-ramp day-use area, the route follows a forest trail beside the Fantastic Lava Beds. This first stretch is mostly gradual, with Jeffrey pines giving intermittent shade and the rough, dark lava flow alongside. The cone appears as the trees thin. At about 1.2 miles, a fork at its base marks the start of the climb; the southward view here is the first look at the Painted Dunes. This approach follows a portion of the Nobles Emigrant Trail, one of the routes emigrants used to cross the area.

Take a pause in the pines before the climb. The final ascent gains about 200 feet from the cone’s base, but it feels harder than that number suggests: your feet sink and slide on small, loose cinders, and the slope is exposed to sun. High-topped hiking boots are advised. Stay on the marked path; footprints off-trail leave scars in the fragile cinder surface.

The mapped summit route reaches the top and circles the crater rim before turning back down the same climb and retracing the forest approach. From the rim, you can pick out Prospect Peak, Lassen Peak, Snag Lake, the Fantastic Lava Beds and the Painted Dunes. A separate path descends into the crater; that is an additional route choice, not part of the four-mile summit outing described here. The crater has a striking double rim, and you can see the contrast between its dark cinder slopes and the older forest below.

Cinder Cone is made of scoria, dark rock formed when gas-filled blobs of lava cooled in the air and fell back around the vent. There are actually two cones: the older one is almost buried by the larger, younger cone. Blocks of red, cemented scoria from that older cone were carried into the Painted Dunes by lava flows. The colored ash also fell onto still-hot lava, which oxidized it into the reds and grays visible from above.

The cone and nearby lava look so fresh that early visitors thought eruptions had happened in the 1850s. Later geologic and tree-ring evidence places the eruptive sequence around A.D. 1630–1670. The summit’s double-rimmed crater probably reflects changing eruptive activity late in the cone’s formation. The Nobles route below is part of the California National Historic Trail; it was one of two emigrant routes through what is now the park.

The trailhead is in the remote Butte Lake Day Use Area, reached from Highway 44 by six miles of dirt-and-gravel road. Passenger cars usually manage it, but the road can be dusty or rutted in midsummer, has limited parking, and is not maintained in winter. The hiking season is roughly June through November. A park pass or entrance-fee receipt is required. Restrooms are available; potable water depends on the adjacent campground being open, and there are no other services or cell coverage in the area. Dogs are not allowed on park trails.

For a summit photo, include the red-and-gray dunes and the dark Fantastic Lava Beds together. Their contrast is the clearest picture of how the cone reshaped this landscape, and the view opens up from the rim without leaving the trail.