Craters Of The Moon

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?! Oh my goodness, Craters Of The Moon is UNREAL!

I could not get enough of this place! It is mesmerizing in how completely different it is from any other place I’ve ever been to. It honestly feels out of this world and our family had so much fun exploring this place.

“…a weird and scenic landscape peculiar to itself.”
*From the Proclamation that created Craters of the Moon National Monument, 1924*

STAMPS!

We hit the road early from Rexburg and made our way over to Craters Of The Moon National Monument & Preserve. First stop, STAMPS! We had to go over to the Robert Limbert Visitor Center and get our stamps done for our Passport Books. The kids are getting really into this and Mark and I are absolutely loving it! We also got Lydie her own Passport Book and she got her first stamp – WOOT!

We walked around the visitor center a little bit, the big kids and Mark watched a movie about the park, we took in the exhibits and then made our way into the park!

COTM is interesting in that {almost} everything is along the Loop Road. This is a seven-mile loop road with seven different stops – each offering different volcanic features.

{WARNING: I took a million different pictures while we were here. Did I mention how enthralled I was with this place?!}

Stop #1 – Visitor Center

The first stop is the Robert Limbert Visitor Center – check, check!

Stop #2 – North Crater Flow

This is a great start to what you are going to see. It’s like a fun little teaser. There’s a short trail that crosses one of the youngest flows to monoliths-crater fragments.

ʻaʻā Lava – a Hawaiian term that describes lava that is stony and rough

Stop #3 – Devils Orchard

We stopped here for lunch – which we ate in the car! I got up later than I wanted to that morning and didn’t have a chance to make our sandwiches before we left. So I made them on a cement table in Devils Orchard and the wind was HOWLING!

We were so grateful it wasn’t raining but it was cold and windy the entire day. Lydia…not a fan. More on that later.

But while everyone was inside the van, I was outside using every finger I had to keep bread and everything else down while I assembled sandwiches. I am sure it was a comical sight. Also, the kids may or may not have eaten sandwiches that had fallen on the ground. Extra protein…?

ANYWAY…moving on! There is a short walk through just plain old weird features. Two thousand years ago when the volcanoes erupted they tore themselves apart. Rivers of lava floated huge chunks of crater wall down to this area. As time passed the rocks crumbled and vegetation grew. A hundred years ago, a visiting minister declared this area to be “a garden fit for the devil himself.” And I must admit…I think he was right!

We divided up this and the next couple stops between the boys and the girls. Mark would take the boys while Sarah and I would sit in the car with Lydie and then we would switch! This added some time but it actually went really smoothly – plus these stops didn’t take much time to do. WIN FOR EVERYONE {…but mostly Lydia}!

“What you see depends mainly on what you look for.”
*Richard J. Vogl, biologist*

Stop #4 – Inferno Cone

At this stop you get to climb a cinder path to the TOP of an inferno cone…WHAT?! How cool is that?! This was really fun but also INSANE with the wind. I honestly thought out little tribe was going to blow away.

In Benjamin’s words. “I…CAN’T…BREATH.”

Cinder cones form when volcanic froth {cinders} erupts high into the air and then piles into a mound.

Stop #5 – Spatter Cones

There is a short trail that takes you up these mini volcanoes. So amazing…and also amazing that my hat did not fly off into them.

These miniature volcanoes form when blobs of molten lava were lobbed into the air during the last gasp of an eruption. COTM has lots of these!

The boys hiked up the North Crater Trail and were able to look down into this crater!

Proof that Lydie was on our trip! She was so delightful in the car and I think it was all part of her master plan to stay inside for as long as possible!

Stop #6 – Tree Molds and Broken Top Loop

This stop is where you get more options. There are three different trailheads you can use. We opted to do the Broken-Top Loop Trail which went around a cinder cone. This was also really great with the kids because there was a nifty guide which ten different markers on it.

The kiddos loved being the first to find a marker and it gave them a distraction for when they got tired. We finally kicked Lydie out of the car and she did great – once she figured out how to breathe in the wind.

This is the youngest volcano on the Snake River Plain! It came from this Great Rift when frothy, molten rock was sprayed high into the air and then the wind blew the cinders into this cone.

Here is the Snake River Plain – you can see where the lava stop and the foothills of the Pioneer Mountains begin. It is such a strange landscape – but oh so interesting!

An overlook of the “Big Sink”. We also took a spur trail that showed a lava flow known as the “Blue Dragon”. It reminded early explorers of dragon skin because of its blue color and spiny surface. My kids were soaking this all up!

Our whole trail we were walking on theses beauties – CINDERS! Cinders are mostly gas bubbles with thin layers of glass that create prisms. AMAZING!

Behind me and the little lady is Big Southern Butte. This is a massive dome made up of thick pasty lava that slowly broke through the surface and rose up to form this peak.

LAVA BOMBS! When this was created, globs of molten rock {aka – LAVA BOMBS!} were thrown out of the fissure.

Benji is walking along a pressure ridge. This happens when…well…lots of science-y things happen with hot and cool lava and air. And LAVA TOES are created! P.S. Who knew there were so many fun lava terms – not me!

This is the entrance to the Buffalo Caves which are LAVA TUBES! Lava tubes are made when crusts of cooling lava develop over rivers of hot flowing lava. Once the lava drains out it leaves a tube or cave behind. Mark, Jacob, and Sarah just went a little bit into this one – more lava tubes later!

Here are part of my crew looking at the Big Cinder Butter. It is the largest cinder cone at COTM. I just loved this picture because this was a big part of the hike, looking and learning. But I love how much the kids love this as much as we do.

Pahoehoe – this is a type of lava flow that means “ropy”. Isn’t this just unreal?

But let me just take this moment to say how AMAZING all of our kids were. We hiked over nine miles this day and the kids walked it all! Even Benjamin was such a trooper and hardly ever was carried. Our kids are pretty awesome {and so is Mark!}

Please notice the young child just relaxing on Mark’s back…he kills me with his adorableness.

Stop #7 – Caves

Has anyone made it this far?! Holy smokes.

LAST STOP!

The last stop is to the caves trail. The trail crosses over a lava field with random cave entrances. It is so bizarre. The “caves” are actually lava tubes!

There are four different caves you can explore. We did the Indian Tunnel.

The entrance to Indian Tunnel. This tube is 30 feet high, 50 feet wide and 800 feet long. It involved a descent amount of scrambling over large rock piles but are kids did great with it. “WE ARE EXPLORERS!”

This is where you POP out of the cave. It was also right before this moment where I was ***slightly*** concerned that we were not alone in the tube. It’s really dark by the end except for this little hole and I didn’t know if it was a bear or a mountain lion but I swear there was something in the corner. Luckily, all was well, and if we weren’t alone, they at least let us pass on by.

Final Thoughts

It’s about time, right?!

I think I have given you enough information and pictures to completely give you your fill of COTM that you may think you don’t need to go visit it. GO!!! It’s amazing and something everyone should experience. Now maybe you just won’t have to read the signs though 😉

After COTM, we drove over to Ketchum and got a delicious dinner at Despo’s before we completely crashed for the night! It was an unbelievable day!