West Trip 2019 #14 Craters of the Moon National Monument

August 26th - 28th

And we are off Craters of the Moon National Monument. This will be a two day trip stopping at Farewell Bend State Park just outside Huntington Oregon.
Farewell Bend SP  Snake river

This was an interesting town with a population of a little over 400 but you have to take a number at the local cannabis dispensary 🤔.  We arrived about an hour before dark got setup and took a walk down to the snake river.  The next morning we found the camper had water all over the floor and soaking everything under the sofa.  It appears that the water pump/city water connection had failed and was leaking.  Well after a clean up and breakfast it was time to head out to Arco Idaho and Craters of the Moon NM.  It was getting hot so we decided to stay at Mountain View RV park and campground in Arco so Kira would have air conditioning, no dogs on national park trails.  Craters of the Moon was about 15 miles away.
our view

nice site


  Next day it was time to explore Craters of the Moon National Monument.  First stop as usual was at the visitor center to get a permit to enter the caves in this park.  Next we hiked Inferno cone a cinder mountain to the top.  A great view of this unique area.







What a out of this world view.  This was a short steep hike and all that black lava was heating up fast.


Now it was time to do some spelunking at Indian cave and others by hiking the Caves trail.







We stopped about 2/3rds through Indian cave because the wasp were thick at the roof collapse opening.  Bummer...

Next we continued driving the 7 mile loop trail stopping at various sites including Spatter cone trail and Devil's Orchard Trail.








Time to head back to camp and get ready to continue our journey.  Next stop Grand Teton National Park.

See Ya then.
Tom

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