I started hiking early, and was glad I did. The morning light is better for photography, and I had the place to myself. On the way back I passed large groups heading in. Atop the cinder cone is a steeply sloped crater. There is evidence of several rims that were left by different eruptions.
Wildflowers dot the coppery soil.
This photo was taken with the morning sun just peeking over the rim of the crater, casting my shadow down a hundred feet or more to the sharp bottom of the crater. You can see a loop of the trail that leads down into the crater. The painted dunes are fields of ash coughed out from the Cinder Cone during one of its many eruptions. In this photo we are looking down the slope of the Cinder Cone to the Painted Dunes surrounding it. Mt. Lassen rises from the pine forests to the southwest.