Idaho II
Millions of years ago, the caldera (the hot spot near the surface) of the Yellowstone supervolcano seethed under the lands of Idaho. The continental plates and the lava have shifted since then. Slowly, the heat underneath has moved hundreds of miles and into Wyoming.
Only 15,000 years ago, though, the caldera burst out in lava flows and it did so in eastern Idaho. Only 2,000 years ago, it erupted again (in a minor way, or we wouldn't be here). It created more lava on the plains of Idaho. According to most geologists, the volcanic fissures at Craters of the Moon are dormant, not extinct. Ugh. So they are expected to erupt again in the next thousand years.
Underneath the Snake River Plain, which runs through Idaho, is a feature called the Great Rift. It's an area where the ground gapes open in spots, with some of the clefts as deep as eight hundred feet. Naturally, the major lava pools formed along the path of the Great Rift.
Even now, the environment on the Snake River Plain is harsh. The dry winds and heat-absorbing lava rocks sap water from the area. Summer soil temperatures exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Plant cover is less than 5% on the cinder cones, where we hiked, and about 15% over the entire park.
It is not a hospitable place.
The features are darned unique, though. And hiking here is another sneaky way to visit Yellowstone without the crowds. At the visitor center, I didn't have to wait in line. I strolled straight to the desk. There, a young man asked if he could help and I said, "My wife isn't here yet but I know what she's going to ask. Where can we go and not see any other people?"
The two women next to me overheard and burst into laughter. But they nodded.
"Okay, I can't get you to no other people at all," he replied. He unfolded a map for me and circled three different trails. "But I can get you to where there's hardly anyone else."
"Sold," I replied, maybe a bit quickly. He had a plan and I patiently listened to the details. Not surprisingly, the longest and most exposed trails were the least popular.
Inferno Cone
Some of the popular attractions at Craters of the Moon are so alluring that we waded into them anyway, despite the presence of other people. One of them was the Inferno Cone, the largest cinder cone in the park. It looked so great, I had to pull into the lot. We emerged from the car smiling at the sight.
"Do you want to climb that basalt mountain?" my wife asked.
"Yeah, that's a terrible idea," I agreed. "Let's go."
She took a few steps along the path. She stopped and turned, eyes narrowed in a suspicious glare. "What did you just say?"
"Let's go." I passed her on the way.
After we had hiked a couple hundred feet up, maybe halfway to the top, we paused. The elevation and the incline were both pretty high. The experience started to remind me of one I'd had at the Bear Dunes park in Michigan. There, almost twenty years before, I decided to run down a sand dune mountain that started on a bluff and proceeded far below to the shores of Lake Michigan. After the journey to the water, of course, I had to trudge back up the bluff. It took ages. Naturally, everyone gave me grief about it but, in my defense, everyone had warned me not to do it.
I had no such defense this time. Granulated basalt is a much, much easier surface than sand, though. We enjoyed the climb. When we got to the highest rocks on the peak, we adored the view, too.
This was a great, highly recommended hike. The trail took us up the northwest side of the mountain (Broken Top) and then around it, down, and back to the west. From the overlook, and in several other places, we could see another mountain that probably deserved to be called broken, too. Really, all of the features around us were probably cones or buttes. To our south, we could see Big Cinder Butte, not much taller than the place we were hiking.
Part of what made the trail so good was the wildlife at the top and the desolation at the bottom. At the bottom, we passed into the lands of the Great Rift. We explored some of the earth-cracking fissures and, gracefully enough, we did not fall in. (For most of them, it would have taken a lot of effort to get into a position to fall. A fall would not have been recoverable in any way, though. No one would have even recovered a body.) We did look fairly closely into Buffalo Caves, though, since the other cave trails were closed due to park maintenance.
Tree Molds Trail
On the way back to the same parking area, we hiked on some of the Tree Molds path. It wasn't hard to see why it got its name.
In fact, as a general observation, I felt I could understand why some of the Apollo astronauts - Alan Shepard, Eugene Cernan, Joe Engle, and Edgar Mitchell - performed part of their training at Craters of the Moon as they tried to learn to look for the best rock specimens in a harsh environment.
Wednesday, July 3
Boise, Idaho
Okay, so we hardly looked at it. We stayed in Boise. We know it has good coffee shops. We drove around and looked. But Boise is actually pretty big.
Unlike most of the towns we stayed in, Boise has all the elements of a good-sized city. It's the opposite of touring the national parks. We arrived without much time to explore before our flight. We were surprised to see the number of high-rises. I was pleased to drive by a professional football stadium, a basketball and hockey arena, and evidence of nightlife. Boise has a lot going on. We dined at a restaurant in the Basque district. Boise has districts!
Our basement apartment AirBNB was well tended but it was so plain (bare concrete floors, no tiles, terrible water, odd smells), I grumped about it quite a bit. Still, I left with the impression there is plenty to do in Boise. There's plenty during the summers, at least, and probably all year round. We hadn't seen enough - which is how we end many of our multi-state tours.
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