Craters of the Moon (Blaine, Butte, Lincoln, Minidoka, and Power Counties, Idaho)

This was the first stop on our summer trip to Yellowstone. It was a convenient location to make camp, but after having visited, I wish I would have planned for more time here. The landscape is very interesting and deserving of a follow-up trip in the future. It does remind me a great deal of Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California, but on a grander scale and with fewer caves.

We arrived in the late afternoon to sweltering heat. The lack of trees in this lava-scape only worsened the uncomfortableness. To try and maintain some level of enjoyment, Cass and I decided to set up camp and then explore the park a bit in the jeep (with the AC on). This area is truly vast, and unlike many other lava beds I have seen, was the result of fissures opening up as opposed to actual volcanic eruptions. There are however, a number of cinder cones and spatter cones within the borders of the park. We continue to drive around a bit and got some ideas for what we might explore in more detail come the cooling relief of morning. Returning to camp at near sunset, we laid down for a restful night under the stars.

We awoke early and immediately began to break camp and repack the jeep. Our first stop was an area known as the Devil's Orchard. The name stems from two features. The first the upright pillars of cooled lava dotting the area resemble trees in some ways. The second are actually trees, but examples which have been plagued by a deforming disease known as witch's broom, which causes an excessive number of limbs to grow from a single point on the branch. This results in odd features that resemble numerous brooms placed throughout the tree's structure. It is even more visible after the tree's death, and in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease, early caretakers of this park, poisoned many of the afflicted trees. Many of those dead deformed trees remain standing along the Devil's Orchard trail, which we walked.

 

Moving on to other areas of the park, we visited the spatter cones, which are effectively very small volcanoes (house size) that sputtered lava bombs during the time when this area was more active. Interestingly, many of them conceal caves below. At least one of which, contained a fair amount of snow at it's base. I guess it doesn't receive enough sunlight through the small opening to melt even in this 95+ degree weather.

An hour two of exploring and we decided it was time to move on to our next stop. Overall, this was a stop well worth our time and I hope to spend more time here in the future.