Lake Helen at an elevation of 8,164’ is a popular stopping spot on the loop highway through the park. It was so named for Helen Brodt, the first woman to climb Lassen Peak.
Long before there was any thought given of making Lassen a national park, the area lured summer tourists from the Sacramento Valley to escape that region’s heat. In late August 1864, a camping party consisting of Pierson B. Reading, Kendall Bumpass, S.S. Thomas, and Aurelius and Helen Brodt arrived at Morgan Meadows, to the south of Lassen Peak. On August 28, they made the ascent to the top of the peak. Two weeks later, the Brodts journeyed to Susanville, where Aurelius Brodt wrote to his mother about his journey in the mountains. “Last week Helen and myself climbed and stood upon the very top of Lassen Peak, 11,000 feet above the level of the ocean. It was a thrilling adventure—we walked over ice and snow that had probably been there for centuries—we found a crater in active operation, sending up vast clouds of sulphurous steam making a deafening roar similar to an immense steam engine [Bumpass Hell]. We found a beautiful little lake near the top of the mountain which was named Lake Helen after my wife, she being the first woman that had ever seen it, also her name and date Aug. 28, 1864 is inscribed on the side of a large rock on the very peak, she being the first woman that ever ascended the peak.”