Following a Lava River Flow and a Crater Rim

Looking up our further route, I saw something called “lava cave” coincidentally on the map. We didn’t have high expectations but it sounded interesting, so we decided to quickly stop by there. Best idea ever! It turned out to be the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, featuring a huge lava river cave. 100,000 years ago, lava flowed down the volcano in that very same tube you’re walking in. We were impressed how gigantic it is. It is not only 1,6 km long, but also very wide and high inside. Sometimes it looks like a perfect tube and you almost can’t believe it’s natural. We could also find some cool geological structures inside like the “bathtub rings” which show different heights of lava flows, a “tube in tube” (a small one in the big one) and the “sand gardens” where sediments seeping through the ceiling form interesting structures.

After exploring the “inside” of a volcano, we took a look at the outside of another at Crater Lake National Park. Driving there already led us through a desert of ashes. When we reached the crater rim, we could see the beautiful lake. It’s the USA’s deepest lake with very clear water, so it looks deep blue or ink coloured as it is mostly described. Like Mt. St. Helens, but a much longer time ago, it was a volcano which collapsed during the eruption, leaving the massive crater now filled with water. We continued eastward on the scenic Rim Drive stopping at a couple of viewpoints. The Pumice Castle and the Phantom Ship were some interesting geological formations to see. We also took a detour to The Pinnacles, which were our favourite geological sight. These are hollow (!) conglomerate stone pillars which formed when hot pumice buried a river and the steam escaped through vents, welding the rock on the sides.

Afterwards, we drove further towards the coast. We could hardly escape all the Christian radio channels broadcasting songs worshipping Jesus and God all the time. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any more downloaded podcasts to listen to… Suddenly, the sky was getting darker and darker. We thought it was fog at first, but soon we were sure that wasn’t it. The sun appeared like a big, deep red-glowing ball, during the middle of the day. Plus, it started to smell terribly burned. Indeed, there was an ongoing wildfire in the area. We thought the smoke was bad but the people living there seemed to be easy-going. It’s just normal that there are wildfires in the summer. We checked the alerts and stayed the night in a “green zone”. However, we still had a bit of ashes on our tent the next morning.