The new dual-frequency radar satellite ASAR-ISRO provide simultaneously and for the first time a wide wavelength spectrum which is critical to discriminate surface roughness based on different backscattering characteristics. Here we use such dual L-band and S-band airborne SAR system to characterize and map various volcanic areas in the Northern Cascades through their backscattering properties. Mapping volcanic flows (lava flows, pyroclastic currents, lahars) is vastly improved by using backscattering as a metric of surface roughness. Various types of volcanic flow deposits and surface textures are distinguished by their roughness measured with radar systems. The ability of radar systems to distinguish volcanic flow textures, represented by roughness, is a key factor in understanding the processes and timescales of flow emplacement. For instance, transition from pahoehoe to aa lava flows is associated with change in flux and steepness of topographic gradient. Therefore, lava textures are essential data for calibrating and improving lava flow emplacement codes. Similarly, the textures of high velocity, and more deadly, pyroclastic currents and lahars change along their flow paths, also revealing critical data about the mechanisms of flow emplacement. As with lava flows, we use the ASAR-ISRO L+S SAR system to characterize the run-out distances of pyroclastic currents and lahars where large numbers of blocks accumulate in such deposits (places where flow momentum was lost, whether due to friction or break-in-slope and vast quantities of blocks accumulate in a relatively small area compared to the total area inundated by the flow). Mapping volcanic flow textures in a variety of volcanic terrains will provide clues about modes and rates of emplacement, and change in these through time, in a way that is simply unavailable by traditional geologic mapping. The next generation of volcanic flow maps, used for hazard assessment, will rely on radar data to delineate these textures.