Craters of the Moon, ID –
Bleak.
That’s what it looks like to me.
I’m glad that I didn’t have to cross this stretch on foot.
Or in a wagon train as a settler, for that matter.
The stories are all bleak.
The miles and miles of nothing but cinders underfoot.
Like millions of tiny razors, cutting and slicing.
Reducing foot and hoof to a bloody mess.
Makes me glad that I’m visiting now, and not back then.
Now, when we’ve got good pavement to drive on.
And good shoes to walk in.
Dore and I were spending a week in West Yellowstone in mid-April, exploring the parts of the park that had reopened after clearing the roads of the winter snows, and we had decided to drive out to Craters Of The Moon for the day.
See, Dore’s got this thing for volcanoes.
Not that I don’t.
It’s just that I’ve been visiting them all my life.
Having grown up with a Geologist for a father, we spent most of our vacations visiting things that were interesting to him as a Geologist.
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that there were things to see on vacations other than rocks and volcanoes.
Not that I’m complaining.
Since it’s what I grew up with, I thought that every one climbed volcanoes when on vacation.
Nope, think again.
So Dore’s got this thing for volcanoes.
And even though we were in a super volcano at Yellowstone, it doesn’t look like one.
At least, not your stereotypical cone-shaped mountain with the open crater at the top.
So, why not spend a day visiting a very large lava field, climbing up cinder cones and hiking through lava tubes?
Why not indeed!
After all, it’s only a couple of hours drive west from where we were staying.
So, after breakfast, we grab our coats, hats, and cameras and hop in the car for the drive.
And it was an interesting drive, along the northern edge of the Snake River Basin, with the mountains on one side, and the undulating plains on the other.
In fact, for a good part of the drive, we’re looking at the fields to either side of the road and wondering at the lumpy nature of them.
Kinda like the folds and creases of a blanket that hasn’t been smoothed.
Until we finally realize that what we’re looking at is miles and miles of lava fields, most of the way there.
Still, it makes for good farmland, once the rock is broken down into dirt.
Until then, it’d be very difficult to deal with.
But after a couple of hours, we reach the park.
Actually, we reached a scenic overlook on the side of the road, where we pulled over to look out over a good portion of the park.
A portion that didn’t have any man-made pathways to navigate.
Just one large lava field, stretching for as far as we could see.
And it was here that I realized that I would not be able to wear my hat during our visit.
See, the hat I usually wear during the wintertime does a very good job of keeping my head warm, but is not good at staying on my head in windy conditions.
It has a wide brim, all around. Good for catching the wind.
And boy was the wind blowing!
A cold front was blowing in that day, bringing with it a lot of precipitation that would initially take the form of rain, but overnight would turn to snow, dumping a couple of feet on us over the next couple of days.
But this was the day before the snow, as the front was heading our way.
So, when we got to the actual park entrance, our immediate destination was the souvenir shop, to see if they had any headwear that I could acquire that could handle the wind.
Luckily for me, they did.
A camouflage beanie.
It wouldn’t keep my head as warm as my hat, but it would stay on my head in the wind.
And that was what mattered.
Back when I was in junior high school, I had visited Craters Of The Moon with my family.
At that time my brother, who had recently read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, observed that Craters Of The Moon looked like the descriptions of Mordor.
I hadn’t read the books yet, so I couldn’t agree or disagree with him.
This time around, having read the books and seen the movies, both years ago, I can agree with him.
Miles of undulating lava fields, stretching for as far as you can see.
With spotty vegetation.
From the top of a cinder cone, we could see another cone in the distance.
With no discerning landmarks in between.
After climbing a couple of smaller spatter cones, one of which had a snow plug so big that it stays in place year round, and hiking around some of the various paths that had been paved through the fields, we made our way over to the lava tubes.
A lava tube is a cave that’s formed when the top layer of a lava flow cools enough to harden into solid rock while the rest below continues to flow, eventually emptying the tube, leaving a hollow cave.
And sometimes, at some later point in time, thinner parts of the ceiling of the tube can collapse, exposing the tube to anyone around to find it.
While the park has four of these tubes that you can climb into, only one of them, Indian Tunnel, was open during our visit.
It’s also the longest, and the only one that can be explored without a flashlight.
So, we hiked out to the entrance, passing the entrances to the others.
When we arrived at the open tube, there was a staircase for entering the tube through one of the places where the ceiling had collapsed.
And there were other spots where the ceiling had collapsed, a few hundred yards apart.
Close enough together to provide sufficient light to find our way through.
And at each one, there was a pile of rubble (and snow) that we had to climb over and around.
Until we got to the end of the tube.
Where there was a small hole, large enough for an adult to climb through, to get out and back on the surface.
Once on the surface, there was no paved path to follow, just a series of cairns and poles to guide you over the rocks, back to the tube entrance, where the paved path led back to the parking lot. Not only did the poles guide us back to the paved path, they kept us away from weak spots where we might fall through, back into the lava tube.
And the rain had arrived.
By the time we had made it back to the car, we were thoroughly soaked.
We were tired, hungry, cold, and very wet, with a long drive ahead of us.
Time to head back to town to find something to eat.
And to dry out a bit…
For more photos of the Craters of the Moon, click here.
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