Indian Tunnel Cave Tour
The park was one of the best maintained parks we have visited. From newly paved roads to great walking paths as you see in this photo, a lot of U.S. dollars were spent updating this facility.
Our Ranger discussed many features of the park as we walked along our path to Indian Tunnel.
At Craters of the Moon, structures representing both
inflation and deflation of the lava surface can be seen along with hot and cold
collapses of the roofs of lava tubes. This photo depicts what is call a cold collapse.
A
stairway provides easy entry to Indian Tunnel. The
size of the tube (30' high, 50' wide and 800' long) allows you to walk around but be on the lookout because you can trip easily.
An eruption tore the wall apart, and a series of lava flows rafted the fragments away.
The
trail continues past Big Cinder Butte, which rises 700 feet above you.
Collapses in the ceiling allow sunlight to enter so a flashlight is not needed
to travel in most of the cave.
On
the ceiling of the tube you can see lava stalactites formed as the river of
lava pulled away from the ceiling, and molten material began to drip from the
hot ceiling.
You can see in this photo, its easy to trip with all the debris on the floor surface.
If you are willing to scramble over a large pile and climb through a small opening, you can exit this cave at the far end.
Here you can see visitors climbing to exit the tunnel.
At last, I make it out of the tunnel.
Follow the rock cairns with posts across the lava to return
to the paved trail.
North Crater Trail Hike
Here I am at the North Crater Trail head. This trail is especially interesting for its variety.
The trail leaves directly from the parking lot and mostly over cinders with a short amount of paving at the far end.
The trail traverses North Crater and drops into the crater's mouth.
An eruption tore the wall apart, and a series of lava flows rafted the fragments away.
Kathy found an interesting tree root and decided it would be a great photo op.
The trail continues to the rim of Big Crater. This Crater was so huge that I had to take several photos to show the entire Crater.
This shows the middle section of the Crater.
Here's a photo of the walking trail along the ridge of the Crater.
This photo shows a side to side picture of the Crater.
While walking, we met a group of geologists from Indiana University.
The trail is an out and back with a fair amount of climbing
and descending throughout the hike. The hike could be a one way if you can
arrange for a ride at the Spatter Cones parking lot. We decided to leave our bikes at the Spatter Cones parking lot and ride the bikes back to the campground.
Wilderness Trail Hike
The
Wilderness Trail begins at the Tree Molds parking lot. You walk about .8 miles to the intersection of the Broken Top Loop and the start of the Wilderness Trail.
This
lava field is the largest of several large beds of lava that erupted from the
53-mile south-east to north-west trending Great Rift volcanic zone.
Here's the marker showing where the lava trees are located.
The trees were incinerated but as some of them burned they
released enough water to cool the lava to form a cast.
Dense shrubs and uneven lava make the going slow and
sometimes unpleasant. Wear long pants for bush whacking or your legs will get
shredded!
A plant commonly seen on the lava field is the dwarf
buckwheat, a flowering plant 4 inches tall
with a root system 3 feet wide. The root system monopolizes soil moisture in
its immediate area, resulting in individual plants that are evenly spaced.
The Wilderness Trail hike is 8-miles long however, we decided to hike back following the Broken Top Loop Trail which added another mile to our total hike.
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