The only flat region of Idaho, the Snake River Plain, stretches across the belly of the state like a toothy grin. It all pretty much looks the same with sage brush being the only green until you get to the middle. There, the ground changes colors and textures. Instead of desert plains it is black and crusty, almost other worldly. As if a wildfire raged leaving a permanent scar. Some say it looks like the moon, others like the devil’s garden. This is Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.
Two thousand years ago it was a glowing, oozing, exploding, odious, noxious place with biblical rivers and lakes of fire and brimstone. Today, it is a vast wilderness of igneous rock, sharp as glass, demonstrating life in its infancy as the miracle of creation manifests itself in the midst of an otherwise ancient landscape.
On my way back to Utah from Sun Valley, I stopped at this peculiar place with my brother and nephews. Together we visited the Devil’s Orchard and climbed Inferno Cone.
Devil’s Orchard
The orchard trail is paved and very easy. It wanders through a section of the lava field that is already growing quite a bit of vegetation including ancient limber pines that can live more than a thousand years. There are massive lava formation and spectacular rocks and trees throughout.
Inferno Cone
Rising high above the landscape, Inferno Cone is a pile of cinders created when an eruption took place nearby. The wind piled the cinders up creating the small black peak. From the top, one can see the true size of this natural scar as it stretches for miles in every direction.
North Crater Flow
After bidding farewell to the family, I continued my exploration of the monument for the rest of the afternoon hiking three more trails and entering a lava tube cave. The first trail was another short paved trail. This one traverses a field of lava and wraps around monolithic pinnacles of lava. Along the path are signs explaining the types of lava (Pahoehoe [pa-hoy-hoy] and A’a [aw-aw]) and the event that created this particular section of the park.
Tree Molds
The next trail I explored was very tranquil as it meandered up and through some grassy, tree-covered cinder hills along the edge of an expansive, barren lava field. The destination: molds of ancient trees left in the crusty rock. Most people who started this trail turned back early, so I was alone for most of the hike.
After skirting the hardened swamp of volcanic rock for a while, signs marking the molds appear. There are only a few, but they are amazing. Think about it, these are imprints of ancient trees consumed slowly by cooling lava. It is like a subtractive petrified wood.
Broken Top
The parking lot for Tree Molds is also the starting point for the Broken Top Loop. This trail showcases just about everything the park has to offer from expansive lava fields and formations to vegetated hills and lava caves.
I really enjoyed this trail with its grand vistas and up-close details. I saw remnants of lakes of fire and brimstone and learned what gives the rock a greenish-blue iridescence that pioneers to the region said reminded them of dragon scales.
Toward the end of the loop, hikers come across Buffalo Caves—old lava tubes—where the top is broken. This collapsed roof allows visitors to climb into the beautiful caves*. Inside these tubes where magma once flowed, you can see what the dried lave looks like before being weathered for millennia.
They are beautiful and worthy of a gander. However, spelunk at your own risk as the rock is sharp and in some places unstable. You may want a hard hat and flashlight to really explore the caves. In my opinion the risk is worth the reward.
There are other trails and caves I didn’t make it to and miles of wilderness I didn’t explore, but I am happy I directed my voyage passed this wonder so I could take a little time to explore. I would go back and would recommend an adventure to Craters of the Moon National Monument.
*note: to enter the caves at Craters of the Moon you need a free cave permit available at the visitor center and entrance fee station. This ensures people are not spreading white-nose syndrome to the park’s bat population.
