Our second day was all about Craters of the Moon National Monument. It's a landscape that's not like anywhere else we've been before. It is so unique that they used it to train astronauts in 1969!
The park is centered around a 7-mile loop road with multiple hikes through one of the largest volcanic rifts in North America: lava flows, cones, craters, caves, and spatter cones.
First stop: the newly renovated North Crater Flow Trail...
Second Stop: Devil's Orchard Nature Trail...
Third Stop: walking to the top of Inferno Cone. We expected that when we braved the fierce winds to the top we would look down into a deep crater-y hole. Nope. It was just flat and more windy!
Fourth/Fifth Stop: Snow Cone, Spatter Cone and a hike to the ridge of Big Craters...
Sixth Stop: We hiked through the Blue Dragon Flows (yes, the rocks here were actually blue) out to Tree Molds. It was like hiking through Mordor!
Stop Seven: Broken Top and Big Cinder Butte...
Last Stop: Exploring Indian Tunnel and Dewdrop Caves, the two open lava tubes. The third is closed to protect the local bat population...
Then it was time to head to the rest stop for dinner and bed. And we also cooked up some dinner before getting some shuteye. God also gave us a nice sunset show while we ate...
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