Cascades, The

The Cascades are accessed via the Kings Creek Falls Trail, which starts along Highway 89 in Lassen Volcanic National Park. The trailhead is found 12 miles north of the southern entrance to the National Park, with ample parking on either side of the road. The trail follows Kings Creek through meadows on a nearly level grade for two-thirds of a mile before reaching the top of the falls where the trail splits. Take the right fork, which descends steeply parallel to The Cascades as they drop down the headwall, with the cascading creek just an arms reach away in many places. The trail in this section is rocky and can be somewhat treacherous, so try not to walk and look at the same time.As Kings Creek tumbles off of the flanks of Mount Lassen it forms one of the more well known waterfalls in the area in Kings Creek Falls. However, hikers have to go past this waterfall, known simply as The Cascades, in order to get there are some may actually confuse the two, which is understandable since The Cascades is four times the size of Kings Creek Falls. As Kings Creek meanders out of its meadows, it begins by skipping down several small ledges, then swooshes through a narrow gap and drops over a veiling 53 foot tall fall. Immediately it gathers and accelerates down a long, steep, sliding 109 foot tall cascade which ultimately ends in a broad free-falling plunge. A short distance downstream is a double-stepped lower tier which drops another 36 feet.A photograph in the Lassen Volcanic National Park archives taken by Henry C. Lind, dating back to perhaps as early as 1930, depicts the top of this waterfall as Upper Kings Creek Falls. This name likely would have applied to the entire series of cascades, but whether this was a formally adopted name or merely a colloquialism is not clear. The Cascades is the current accepted name, but there is potentially precedent that it should be reverted to Upper Kings Creek Falls.