Oct 11-12 Craters of the Moon Nat'l Monument

As soon as the temp rose above 40° Tues morning, we set out with our flashlights to explore three Craters of the Moon well-known caves (or lava tubes): Indian Tunnel, Boy Scout Cave, and Beauty Cave.  Craters of the Moon was established in 1924 by President Coolidge as a 750,000 national monument to preserve “a weird and scenic landscape, peculiar to itself.” 

Jimmy and I drove 40 miles “out of our way” to see for ourselves this stark and weird landscape, blackened by multiple lava flows roughly every two thousand years. Hmmm, the last flow was approx 2,000 years ago… so it seemed very prudent that we stay only one night! 

 

Jimmy @ a cave opening. 

 

Above and below: Me clambering my way thru hulking Indian Tunnel.

As you can see, Indian Tunnel is enormous, or at least we thought so – 30’ high, 50’ wide, and 800’ long. We had to scramble over large rock piles and climb through a small opening to exit the cave at the far end ... not an easy feat.

 

Outside Indian Tunnel exit -- look at this crazy mixed-up pile!

 

 A cave we didn't explore -- looks very fragile, tho it probably isn't.

Boy Scout Cave was really dark, with patches of ice on the floor. We didn’t get too far in before being blocked by barricades due to “unstable ceiling conditions.” Yikes! The light in dead center, above, is the opening of Boy Scout Cave.

We entered Beauty Cave by way of a gaping opening and had to scramble down a slope of mountainous rocks to reach the smooth pahoehoe* floor of this 300’ long tunnel. When we turned off our flashlights at one point, we saw absolutely nothing, no hand in front of the face ... just blackness.  At that point, we turned on the lights and got topside real quick. 😵

 

Nice, smooth volcanic path through pahoehoe and clinkery pieces called a'a.

 

Jimmy, above, stepped out of Tergel, which is parked at the edge of a drop-off. 

We had to watch our step the entire time we were at Craters of the Moon.

For two semi-claustrophobic people, we patted ourselves on the back for, a) being willing to go below, and b) actually following through! After the fact, this was an exciting morning!  Cool place to visit.

* Pahoehoe is basaltic lava forming smooth undulating or ropy masses.