Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument
6 May, 2018
Sunset Crater.
Ah! The crisp smell of the conifers! The lovely light of the mountains! The lunar-like landscape of lava fields! It's so good to be back in National Park Service territory! After hours and hours of technological and other frustrating delays, many, many hours of driving (even in 70-75 mph zones), and having had to spend the night two hours closer to home than planned, we are off on our Colorado Plateau adventure at last!
There are several national monuments south of the Grand Canyon where an excited traveler might want to stop on the way to the massive canyon itself. We only had time for one, so of course we picked the volcanic one, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument.
But first... When I asked our friend Ranger Craig Glassner what we should see in the Grand Canyon, his first piece of advice was to stop at the Snow Cap in Seligman, Arizona, and be sure to see the garden. Seligman is a historic "Route 66" town with all the attendant kitsch. See Mather in front with the ancient rooftop carrier that Eric slapped back together with some sort of plastic bondo for this trip.
The Snow Cap.
This is the big attraction in the garden.
The menu was full of jokes, like "Coffee... yesterday's or today's," and the waitstaff actually asked Eric whether he wanted yesterday's or today's coffee. They were trying to get people to do the twist in order to get soft serve twists. The food was all right, no great shakes (ha-ha), but it was cute.
At last, sometime around 15:00, we arrived at Sunset Crater, and the adventuring began!
Sunset Crater, a classic cinder cone, was the last eruption to occur along the faults separating the Colorado Plateau from the much lower surrounding era, about 900 years ago. Just 900 years ago, not 900 thousand years ago, or 900 million years ago. The lava has not been substantially eroded down; it is still there to delight your eyes. [Source: Pages of Stone: Geology of the Grand Canyon & Plateau Country National Parks & Monuments, by Halka Chronic and Lucy Chronic]
Eric took my picture at the sign at the Visitor Center.
We had indeed climbed to some elevation! I loved that people were cycling around. We had seen several tougher-than-I cyclists on the interstate.
Rubber Rabbit Bush starting to grow up in the lava flow.
Eric took my picture getting down low to photograph the Rubber Rabbit Bush.
We crossed a bridge over a fissure.
Eric took a picture of the fissure from the bridge.
And then, we were hiking through an enchanting 900-year-old lava field. Pure joy!
It's so much fun hiking among piles of lava like these!
Sunset Crater is a beautiful cinder cone with lovely colors.
Patterns in the lava.
Tree growing on a slope.
Eric photographed a gnarled, dead tree.
My detail of the tree.
Eric found a door into a magical volcanic land.
Eric photographed a small spatter cone. This one has been damaged by people climbing into it. Stay on trails!
Eric took a picture of details in the lava.
A lovely red cone.
An incredible volcanic landscape!
View of Sunset Crater from the viewpoint on the entrance road. Note the lovely glow of sunset. We were still two hours from our destination for the night, the Grand Canyon, where would need to set up camp in the dark.
The beautiful top of the cone.
We enjoyed Sunset Crater immensely even though we had to set up camp in the dark! It's well worth taking the long way around into the Grand Canyon if you have time and love lava.
Cumulative distance driven: 1,288 km/800 mi
Distance hiked: 1.6 km/1 mi
Geocaches found: 1
On to Grand Canyon National Park.