Sun Valley Diary 5

Crater of the moon National monument

Driving on an uneventful straight highway, suddenly we arrived at a region with very different rock formation. The expansive plain green land surrounded with distant mountain suddenly changed to gorgeous black rocks.As we started in the mid morning, we reached in the afternoon there. However, the burning July afternoon couldn't resist us exploring the gorgeous landscape.   

Geologist Harold described the area as, “The surface of the moon as seen through a telescope” in 1923. May be, the name Crater of the moon came from there. While planning I came to know about this famous place. I didn’t know what to expect there. I found that there was few short trails. Whether the trails were connected or not I had no idea. Mr. Man, was somewhat skeptical. I was about to drop our plan to visit the place, as it was far from our stay. Last moment he wanted to go there first, and that was the best decision.

This landscape was formed about 15,000 years ago by volcanic eruption, and the last eruption happened about 2000 years ago. Archeological evidence showed that the tribes,Shoshone Indian who led the semi-nomadic life was frequent in the valley probably witnessed the eruption. 

According to the “Serpent Legend”, the very, very long serpent lay there, which is the Snake River. The serpent was not harmful, but they were scared of him. The serpent was harmless. One day he woke up after winter from his bed, The crater of the moon, coiled around the mountain in the sun. After few days lightening and thunder passed the mountain made the serpent angry. When the lighting struck the mountain, the serpent got furious, and started tightening his coil. With the intense pressure rocks started melting down, and fire came out. The serpent couldn’t come out from the fire, and burned into ashes.Then again the rocks became solid. 

Anyway, first we  went to the visitor center to get more information about the region. There, I found that all the trails are connected by a car rout. At every point we could get down, and take the trail to go deeper. 

Inferno Cone

One young forest ranger described us very beautifully how to see the scenic place. That was 7 miles scenic drive, from all the pointes there are long trails to go further inside in the wired scenic place. We had less time in our hand. So, we decided not to hike on any long trail. However, the ranger asked us to hike to Inferno cone. 

Our first stop was North Crater Flow which is one of the youngest of the lava flows. Though the area looked life less from distant, but in reality it is just opposite. You can see the bushes has sprouted every where from the bottom the black solidified lava. The irony is that, those plants do not grow in normal soil. 

After taking the little trail, we drove towards Inferno Cone. Inferno Cone is somewhat different from other parts of the landscape. It looks like gigantic black sand dune. As the area is devoid of any big trees or any other barrier, you’ll feel strong wind always. Though it was just a 0.2 miles hike, but from the bottom it looks daunting for the non-hikers. Though it is called inferno cone, but there is no lava hole on the top, as strong wind swept cinder inside the hole. On a July afternoon when the sun was shinning mercilessly from the top, it was way difficult to hike. However, that steep hike was worth it when we reached the top. The whole valley came into our view, that was spectacular.

Our next stop was Spatter cone and Snow Cone. The Spatter Cone looks like , as the name suggests, as if suddenly the volcanic lava froze before it settled down on the ground.  Due to its formation the lava rocks a very fragile. If you put the crimson red on the rocks, it would look active volcanic lava flaring up. Then we went to Snow Cone adjacent to Spatter Cone. The snow into the deep gorge, the dead hole of the love cone stays snow covered around the year. 

Next we stopped the cave trails. The caves are far from the parking lot. So we decided to visit one cave. The Indian Cave was near our path, so we went there. After walking on the man made path we entered inside the cave. The caves are actually lava tunnels. The lava tunnels were created when the top layer solidified before the inside layer. Eventually, the molten lava flowed creating a pocket. In course of time the “roof” falls down , closing the tunnel. The caves which are still there, are young, and yet to show any sign of collapsing. 

On that burning day, inside the cave was surprisingly cool. Little bats were flying inside creating a cave-like atmosphere. The first path was easy to hike inside the cave. Generally visitors go up to one certain point, which is accessible to all. However, we, and few other families chose to hike further through the rocks inside it, to go out from the other end. That few feet hiking was a hair raising experience to us. We walked almost with hands and feet from one rock to another. The rocks are sharp inside. So, falling can cause severe injury. When we came out from other side we were already exhausted, but there was no chance to stopping. We were far from the parking. We ran out of water already, and the walk from there to parking lot seemed to be miles. we staggered to the car and sat down heavily.