Craters of the Moon Natl Monument

Craters of the Moon Natl Monument became one of my bucket list visits when I learned of the place while volunteering at the fish hatchery near Jackson, WY.  It's taken us awhile to get here, but we made it.

Craters of the Moon lies along the historic line the Yellowstone hotspot has followed (actually, the tectonic plate has traveled) over the last whatever millions of years.  The park's newspaper describes it as "...a weird and scenic landscape, peculiar to itself.  The park contains three lava fields formed by volcanic eruptions originating from a 52-mile long tear in the earth's crust, known as the Great Rift.  Eruptions began about 15,000 years ago and continued until only 2,000 years ago...and will likely continue..."   Greg Bahnmiller called it ugly.

We, however, enjoyed our visit.  Weather was hot.  The park is somewhat small, but gives you a good feel for what recent volcanic action looks like.  We did not crawl through any lava tubes, but did go down into one just to get a feel for it. We did get to the Inferno Cone, Spatter & Snow Cones, Tree Molds Trail (where lava cooled by the steam of burning trees took on the form of the tree - think making an impression of burning tree bark into clay), and Indian Tunnel.

Pictures are below.

Indian Tunnel Lava Tube