Craters of the Moon National Monument is in the Snake River Plain in central Idaho and was established on May 2, 1924. The protected area's features are volcanic and represent one of the best-preserved flood basalt areas in the continental United States. The Monument and Preserve encompass three major lava fields and about 400 square miles of sagebrush steppe grasslands to cover a total area of 1,117 square miles. The Monument alone covers 53,571 acres. All three lava fields lie along the Great Rift of Idaho, with some of the best examples of open rift cracks in the world, including the deepest known on Earth at 800 feet. There are excellent examples of almost every variety of basaltic lava, as well as tree molds (cavities left by lava-incinerated trees), lava tubes (a type of cave), and many other volcanic features.
The Craters of the Moon Lava Field spreads across 618 square miles and is the largest mostly Holocene-aged basaltic lava field in the contiguous United States. The Monument and Preserve contain more than 25 volcanic cones, including outstanding examples of spatter cones. The 60 distinct solidified lava flows that form the Craters of the Moon Lava Field range in age from 15,000 to just 2,000 years and have an average elevation of 5,900 feet above sea level.
Inferno Cone Viewpoint is on top of Inferno Cone cinder cone. A short but steep trail up the cinder cone leads to an overlook of the entire monument. From there the Spatter Cones can be seen just to the south along with a large part of the Great Rift. In the distance is the over 700-foot-tall Big Cinder Butte, one of the world's largest, purely basaltic, cinder cones. Further away are the Pioneer Mountains (behind the Visitor Center) and beyond the monument are the White Knob Mountains, the Lost River Range, and the Lemhi Range. Big Craters and Spatter Cones sit directly along the local part of the Great Rift fissure. Spatter cones are created by accumulations of pasty gas-poor lava as they erupt from a vent. Big Craters is a cinder cone complex less than 300 feet up a steep foot trail.
The temperature was 87 degrees and we saw snow in one of the splatter cones! After several short hikes we continued on our way. Our next stop on the way home was suppose to be Spencer's Rock house, but there was no signage and it appears that someone is using the house as their residence, so we didn't stop at the house, but we did stop down the road for some Dairy Queen blizzard shakes. We debated on stopping for the night in Missoula, but Jason decided to push on through. He drove for 8+ hours and we arrived home at 10:30pm.
We drove 4,065 miles in 19 days, covered 8 states and saw 7 National Parks- Redwoods, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Bryce, Death Valley, Dinosaur, and Craters of the Moon!
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