By Kimberly Chun
It’s trippy but true: if you feel nostalgic for snow in the middle – or well, the tail end – of summer, you should head up to Lassen Volcanic National Park, north of Sacramento and chock-full of geothermal drama like boiling rivers, gurgling mudpots, and jagged rock formations. When I headed up with my veteran camping pal D, the campgrounds were relatively unpopulated; purple, yellow, and pink wildflowers were abundant; and dang, but wasn’t there an amazing amount of snow and ice on the ground – still dirty and frozen and seeded with pine needles at 7,000 feet. And ready to be fashioned into summer snow poodles (with thumbs, to boot).
Frolick in the snow in late August. It’s possible at certain altitudes, dudes.