Part I

The weather here in Utah was higher than average for late September. So I am told. Therefore, I decided to take advantage of the weather and visit a National Park in Idaho.

I decided on Craters of the Moon National Preserve and Monument, which is located in the Snake River Valley of Eastern Idaho.

I did not know what to expect. The home page description mentions “a vast ocean of lava flows with scattered islands of cinder cones and sagebrush.” Somehow, that did not prepare me for the surreal landscape that greeted me.

Panoramic view from atop Inferno Cone

The “Did you Know?” factoid at the bottom of the park page gives some idea of just how vast this landscape is:

Did You Know?
Craters of the Moon is a HUGE national park! It is over 1,100 square miles (over 750,000 acres) which is roughly the size of Rhode Island. The young lava flows that make up the bulk of the Monument and Preserve can clearly be seen from space.

They tried to estimate the age of the lava flow in the picture below by dating the gnarled tree sticking out of this lava ridge. They thought that this lava flow was only 1400 yrs old! Later carbon dating would up the age to about 2000 years. The green, tree-covered hill in the background is a 7500 yr old cinder cone (if I remember correctly).

This 2000 year old lava flow poured out of the north end of a crater off camera to the left.

In addition to just trying to educate visitors about the geology of the park and the events that created it, the park had a neat little interpretive trail in the Devils Orchard, which talked about the impact of visitors and Park Rangers on the park. For example, trees, like the one pictured below, get this parasitic plant growth on their branches–called witch’s broom–that causes the tree to send more nutrients to the limb and results in this spindly, arguably unattractive, overgrowth, but it doesn’t kill the tree. Nevertheless, park rangers were once active at removing these infected trees (I think they said to the tune of about 6000) until they were able to learn that it was a non-lethal interaction.

The weird limb growth is caused by a parasitic plant.

Just after starting along the loop road, you can stop at the Inferno Cone trail. The climb is short, but very steep. However, the panoramic view is well worth the effort. The first photo in this post was taken from the summit. I think they said that on a clear day (when does that happen any more) you can see the Teton Range (?) 100 miles to the east.

On top of Old Smokey...!

In the coming days, I’ll post some more pictures from the park and the trip.