About this permit
A wilderness permit is required for every overnight stay in Lassen Volcanic's designated wilderness, and unlike almost every other park on this list it carries no quota. Recreation.gov states the quota is unlimited. You book one permit per trip, not one per night, and your confirmation email is the permit.
Reservations open on a rolling 90 day window at 10:00 am Eastern each day. The park splits the wilderness into 26 zones and asks you to pick the one closest to where you will camp. Bear canisters are required April 16 through November 30 and the park rents them at the Loomis Museum and Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center.
The route
Four trailheads carry most backcountry traffic: Warner Valley, Butte Lake, Juniper Lake and Summit Lake. The Park Service quietly steers people away from Summit Lake because it is the busiest.
The classic first trip goes from Butte Lake around the Fantastic Lava Beds to Snag Lake, with the option of walking up Cinder Cone on the way. The Painted Dunes and Cinder Cone themselves are closed to camping, so plan on sleeping at the lake.
Warner Valley and Juniper Lake open the southeastern half of the park, where the zones stack up around Drake Lake, Horseshoe Lake and Jakey Lake. Twenty-six zones cover the park, and you book the one closest to where you intend to sleep rather than an exact site.
Why it matters
Lassen is the only place on earth where all four types of volcano sit inside one park boundary, and the wilderness that surrounds them almost nobody walks into. The permit has no quota at all. What limits your trip is snow, not competition.
The feeling
The Fantastic Lava Beds are black, jagged and completely silent, and then you come around them and Snag Lake is sitting there flat and blue with the Cinder Cone rising behind it. In late summer the water is warm enough to swim. At night the only sound is the wind moving through the lodgepole.
