May 19…. Surprises

We set out today to go to Newberry National Volcanic Monument. Another lava field. More cinder cones. More lava. Ho hum.

I was so wrong. It’s “kinda” like Craters of the Moon, but kinda not. A different kind of lava predominates, with a different set of colors. More blacks and reds, less tans and grays. The whole lava field stems from one gigantic volcano, Newberry Volcano, covering over 25 square miles, the largest volcano in Oregon, and one of the largest in North America.

Within that enormous volcano, multiple vents opened up at different times, some as much as 150,000 years ago and some as recent as 1,300 years. Cinder cones are all over the place, rising up from a mostly flat landscape, mini volcanoes in their own right, but all coming from the single giant subterranean magma pipe that feeds them all and IS Newberry Volcano.

I was prepared to be in and out quickly, but after our first stroll through the lava fields, I was hooked.

The giant cinder cone in the background of that last picture is Lava Butte. We drove up the road all the way to the top and walked around its rim.

From there, we went to visit Benham Falls, a cascade waterfall formed when the lava flow dammed a river until it broke free to form the waterfall.

Our next stop may be the highlight of the day…. walking in a lava tube cave!

Lava tubes form when a river of lava solidifies around the outside skin, while the molten rock continues flowing on the inside. As the rock flows out, it leaves a long hollow tube cave. We walked a mile in and a mile out, through this long, long, tube.

We just thought the lava tube was the end of the day, but a ranger told us that the road to Pauline and East Lakes was just opened. These are the central lakes inside the main Newberry caldera. We had to see that. 😄

The lakes are fed almost entirely by snow melt, and there was definitely a LOT of snow still in the area. Then, a single river flows out of the lake and down the mountain.