chaos crags and jumbles

The Chaos Crags are the youngest group of lava domes in Lassen Volcanic and are located just north of Lassen Peak. The Crags can be viewed along the northern section of the main park road and from a pullout about 0.5 mile (0.8k) east of the Manzanita Lake area. Below the Chaos Crags is a 2.5 square mile (650ha) area of devastation, best viewed from the pullout, known as Chaos Jumbles. At first, one may think that this is another area devastated by volcanic eruption but it was actually created by a massive rock avalanche falling from the Chaos Crags about 300 years ago. The slide was so large, it trapped and compressed a pocket of air beneath it which it rode down at speeds of about 100 mile (160k) per hour, wiped out the forest below and damned Manzanita Creek which led to the formation of Manzanita Lake. One can see that after 300 years, the forest still struggles to reclaim the area with a wide variety of plants fighting for a foothold in the jumble of rock.