2023 - West - Arco ID - Craters of the Moon - North Crater Trail, Snow Cone, Spatter Cone, Devil's Orchard

 September 3 - Today we hiked the North Crater Trail to Snow Cone in Craters of the Moon. It was only about 2 miles but we were warned by the park ranger as we entered. She asked if any of us had heart conditions because "North Trail could take you out". We thought she was being over-dramatic. It was a lot of steep ups and downs but the rewards of seeing the craters made up for the hard climbs.

Walking the top edge of these craters made my knees wobble.

Vaughan, however, wanted to walk down into one but realized that none of us wanted to follow so he turned around and headed back up. He loves a challenge.

The lava rocks can be so beautiful.

Spatter Cones are small volcanoes that explode and spatter lava unlike others that have lava flows.

Looking into the cones you cannot see how deep this goes.

Looking into another spatter cone - still snow inside (and someone's hat).

Next we walked through Devil's Orchard. All the large tree were dead and extremely creepy looking but still beautiful in their own way amongst all the lava rock.