Old Station, CA - Lassen Peak

There are four types of volcanoes, and Lassen contains each of these four types. One of my ideas was to hike each type of volcano since Lassen NP is one of the only places that has all four. Cinder Cone is a cinder cone; Prospect Peak is a shield volcano; Brokeoff Mountain is a composite volcano; and Lassen Peak is a plug dome. But we didn't have enough time to do this *and* do some of the other things in the area. So we chose Cinder Cone and Lassen Peak.

Lassen Peak was a 2,000' elevation gain in 2 1/2 miles to the top. The temperature was around 55 degrees when we started, and dropped to 45 degrees at the 10,457' summit. With the wind chill, it might've been a little cooler. But you have gorgeous views along the way...
And, if you're lucky, you might have snow in July...
And the views at the top included Mt Shasta. You could spend quite a bit of time exploring the summit of Lassen. Plug domes are compared to squeezing a tube of toothpaste and how it oozes out. So at the summit's crater you'll find a jumbled mess of boulders that you can explore and scramble around.
And you could get a much greater sense of the number of volcanoes that dot the landscape. There were cones of all shapes and sizes that could be seen for miles.