Arco, ID and Craters of the Moon National Monument

We are now in Arco, ID at the Mountain View RV Park. We left Rexburg on Tuesday at about 11:00 for the short 90-mile drive to Arco. Route 20 heading west is an amazingly quiet road with little traffic and no civilization!

Route 20 Headed West toward Arco

We stopped for lunch at a roadside stop by a historical sign that informed us that elephants and camels had once inhabited the area. (I've included the sign as proof!)

Elephants and Camels?

Today we drove eighteen miles west to Craters of the Moon National Monument. Once again we found ourselves on a desolate route 20.

More Emptiness

The Monument has a nice visitors center with some descriptive films about this active volcanic area. There is a seven mile paved road through the park area. We set out to explore. Our first stop was a cinder cone that was perfect for an ascent to see the surrounding area.

Climbing the Cinder Cone

View from the Cinder Cone

The drive gave us the opportunity to explore relatively young lava flows and the various formations that are formed by various eruption and cooling patterns. The effect of the large lava field is a desolate sort of beauty with a background of green hills and snow covered slopes.

Stark Beauty

Amidst all of this was a variety of flowers that are in abundance at this time of year. (photo to be added)

We hiked a couple of miles through the lava flows and found lots of interesting geological shapes. Among the most interesting were the bombs that are plunked down by the eruption

A Bomb

and the pahoehoe, which are rope-like formations resulting from the flowing lava.

Pahoehoe

Our last activity was to visit a cave area where there are many lava tubes formed by the outside lava cooling while the inside remained hot. We took the opportunity to traverse the most accessible of these, Indian Cave.

Coming through the Lava Tube

We entered the tube via some stairs that descended to the cave entrance.

Accompanied by three fellow neophite speelunkers we wended our way through the cave and over some rocks successfully negotiating our way out the small exit hole at the other end.

Exiting the Lava Tube

All-in-all it was an educational and entertaining day at the Caves of the Moon!

Jun 19, 2008

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