June 15, 2007

June 15, 2007

A half hour north of Crescent, OR is the Newbury National Volcanic Monument. The park has several separate locations in the region. We stop first at the Newbury Caldera. The National Forest Service runs this park for some reason and they don’t have their act together on signage. We keep passing the turnoffs and have to backtrack. The caldera area has two medium size lakes and a lot of pine trees. I am not seeing any volcano anywhere and the Visitor Center is closed. That is a common theme around here. We stop first at the Big Obsidian Flow. From the parking lot we hike atop a monster-size lava flow. I am surprised how high off the surrounding ground level it is. I am also surprised to see Hawaii-like lava flows in Oregon. What makes this flow rare though is that it has huge sections of obsidian. Most lava flows are of pumice, which is lightweight and has lots of gas bubbles in it. Lava that cools slowly loses the gasses and becomes glassy black obsidian, an uncommon find.

Before leaving the park we decide to do a short hour hike on the Little Crater Trail for exercise. I am glad we did because it put the park in focus for us. Little Crater turns out to be a conical volcano after all. We didn’t recognize it as a crater at first because it is overgrown with pine trees. But the outside walls are steep and the inside is steeper. Atop the rim we can now recognize the Newbury Caldera all around us. It is miles wide. We can see a line of forested hills that wrap around us. On the way back down the trail we run into a huge number of Gray Jays (also known as Camp Robbers) in the trees around us. A chorus of shrill cackles comes from all around us. We feel like we are in the horror movie “The Birds” just waiting for them to swoop down.

On the way out of the park we stop at Paulina Falls where water escapes the Newbury Caldera. Newbury would be another Crater Lake except its rim was not as high, which allowed streams to empty it. So instead of one deep lake there are just two shallow lakes.

Now that Newbury has piqued my interest we drive north and stop at another site. This one is the Lava River Cave. It’s an ancient lava tube through which lava used to flow out of the volcano. Now it is a mile long cylindrical cave. With a constant temperature of 42F and no lighting Aimee decides to pass on the experience. I take a flashlight and walk the first 100 yards. The path is rocky and my light is not very bright. I turn it off to experience pitch-black vertigo for a minute and then turn back to rejoin my waiting wife.

We finish our Newbury day by stopping at the Lava Land section. There we find we can’t drive atop the Lava Butte in an RV. We have to make do by visiting the Visitor Center where we watch a video about the mountains in the Cascade Range. Unfortunately for the people living in Oregon and Washington, most of the major peaks are active volcanoes and it is only a matter of time before the next one erupts and paves over their house. Aimee and I were thinking on the way north what a nice place central Oregon would be in the summer. We might have to rethink that. We also do a short stroll behind the Visitor Center on the lava field. It is huge. It stretches as far as we can see towards the west. I never realized how volcanically active this region is.

We spend the night in a very nice private park in Bend, OR. I got the evacuation route all worked out in case I hear some geologic rumbling tonight.