Bumpass Hell: The Guide Who Named It With His Own Leg

There is a category of places named for the disasters that happened in them. Bumpass Hell is one of the more literal examples.

In eighteen sixty-four, a cowboy and guide named Kendall Bumpass discovered a hydrothermal area on the slope of Lassen Peak: a field of boiling pools, steam vents, and sulfurous mud pots at temperatures that can reach roughly two hundred thirty degrees Fahrenheit. He mentioned it to a newspaper reporter the following year, and in eighteen sixty-five he led the reporter back to show him the feature. He had been there before. He knew the crust over the boiling mud was thin. He broke through it anyway. His leg plunged into what was essentially a natural pressure cooker. The leg was subsequently amputated.

Bumpass did not disappear from public life. He spent years lecturing about the hydrothermal features, using the platform of his own injury to promote awareness of the volcanic landscape. Contemporaries described his demeanor as exhibiting what they called grim humor, which may be the understatement of the late nineteenth century.

The area was named for him before the end of that century. Bumpass Hell is now the largest hydrothermal area in Lassen Volcanic National Park: approximately sixteen acres of active geothermal features sitting atop the same volcanic system that erupted between nineteen fourteen and nineteen seventeen.

The boardwalk they built over it is there specifically so future visitors will not repeat the demonstration.