Craters of the Moon in Idaho

Rolf’s comment about the lava flows of Washington I posted about lead me to reading more. I then realized Barb and my visit to Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho last month was totally relevant. It was the same hotspot that created the lava flows from British Columbia through Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, and finally Wyoming where we it created the features of Yellowstone National Park

Here is the governments video of the Craters of the Moon National Monument:

Here are some of my pictures:

The picture on the sign was taken in the late 1950s. A core from the tree showed it was at least 1,350 years old. The lava flow the tree grew from is radioactively dated at about 2,000 years old.

U.S. astronauts spent time here studying the rocks and learning to identify rock types of interest to bring back from the moon.

I have wanted to visit Craters of the Moon since grade school. My cousin Janis told our class about visiting with her parents. I would occasionally mention to my parents I would like to visit it someday, but it was over 400 miles from home and not on the way to or from any other place we routinely went. I was eternally envious of Janis’s visit.

Early this year Barb asked if there was anything I wanted to do over the 4th of July. I told her not particularly. Someday, I would like to visit the Craters of the Moon but that didn’t have to be anytime soon…

Of course, Barb being who she is, couldn’t help but make it happen. We flew into Boise, rented a car, visited Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, Craters of the Moon, and the Shoshone Ice Caves.

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10 thoughts on “Craters of the Moon in Idaho

  1. Did you swing by Arco, and the breeder reactor museum while you were in the area?

      • Arco is a little (okay, tiny) town outside INEL, the first town to have it’s lights powered by electricity from nuclear power, as I recall. Plus they have a really cool submarine memorial there that you may appreciate the humor/irony of.

        The museum is a self-guided thing, where you can walk through parts of the old breeder reactor plant where they did a lot of experiments in the 50’s. Seeing the 2+ ft thick leaded glass they had to work through with remote mechanical arms to disassemble the fuel cores (remember, electronics were in their infancy, and didn’t play well with radiation/EMF yet) is pretty cool. They have some mockups that you can operate as well – trying to put the proverbial square peg in a children’s game is tough enough, much less trying to imagine the skill and dexterity needed for disassembling radioactive fuel cells!

        Outside are some other interesting displays… parts of a nuclear powered jet engine for a bomber, from before ICBMs were viable, along with the *heavily* shielded pusher engine for moving said jet around the air field.

        Not sure if I’d say it’s worth a trip in and of itself, but if you’re in the area again, absolutely swing through there. I went through the A1W prototype @ INEL for the last stage of my Navy nuke training, and wish I’d known about it back then.

        • My best friend (another Boomershooter)’s Dad was one of the engineers who designed the nuclear bomber engine. Quite a feat!

          I think Craters if the Moon is a pretty cool place. My wife and I were driving back from Yellowstone several years ago and spent a day there. Well worth the visit (especially since I’m a geologist!])

  2. Amazing pictures. Back in 2010 I did some hiking on the big island of Hawaii, and the landscapes look just like this, but being much newer flows. I’m getting Idaho being relatively drier preserves the flows better.

  3. Curious that they would call a volcanic park “Craters of the moon” when moon craters are impact objects, not volcanic ones. For an actual replica of a moon crater, drive east from Flagstaff to the Meteor Crater.

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