Craters of the Moon

As we were driving through Idaho on a highway picked for no other reason than the fact that it was not a freeway, we came across The Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. We decided that this was exactly the type of place where we like to stop. 

There was a nice visitor center, complete with a movie, about the volcanic origins of the park. The park is over 600 square miles and is a remnant of volcanic activity between 15,000 and 2,000 years ago. The landscape reminded us a lot of the lava fields on highway 242 from Eugene to Sisters except that it was overall much flatter. 

They had several interesting examples of different lava formations. The first one that we looked at was the cinder cone. There are several big examples of these along the cascades. They are formed when lava sprays out in little droplets which cool and harden in the air to make small lava rocks. These little rocks often get carried in the wind a short distance from where they were expelled from the earth and then pile up to make a hill. It was still very very windy on the top of that hill. 

This image is not slanted

Near the cinder cone was the splatter cone. The splatter cone was the hole from which the lava making the cinder cone emerged. As the volcanic activity starts to slow down and there is less force pushing the lava out it starts to come out in big globs rather than the minute spray. Here the lava stays near the hole it came out of, congealing in globs on the sides. 

  

The park also has lava caves but we didn’t get a chance to explore those. Some of them are relatively accessible but you need to get a permit. Others are supposed to be very cool but require major spelunking skills that we don’t have. 

Overall, a pretty cool and unexpected stopover on our journey east.