National Park Week 2024 Day 4 – Craters of the Moon National Monument!

Today, we will visit another remote park – Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve in Idaho!

Technically, this is not a National Park. Somebody start a petition now! It’s currently classified as a National Monument and Preserve, but it’s still a property of the National Park Service and just as worthy for a feature this week. We visited this area of Idaho on our 2023 Cross Country Road Trip as we made our way from Oregon to Wyoming.

Talk about remote! Small towns were few and far between, so top off your gas every chance you get. We drove many long stretches of road with just cows and farmland around us. Who owns the cows?? Oddly enough, we didn’t see houses or people around, just cows roaming in fields along the road. It was a beautiful drive though.

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a unique area of volcanic cinder cones, lava rock, and sagebrush in southern Idaho. There are more than 25 small cinder cone volcanoes here. Eruptions started 15,000 years ago, with the most recent activity occurring approximately 2,100 years ago. The area is now considered dormant, but geologists believe that it will become active again within the next 900 years.

Visitors can explore miles of trails, caves, and scenic byways along the park’s 9-mile loop road. We saw plenty of RVs and folks at the campsites. There is a small Visitors Center as well, but it was already closed by the time we got there that day. We did the loop drive and walked along a paved trail through one of the main lava fields.

The name is very fitting. It definitely looks like you’re on the moon. Apparently, NASA has visited the park recently in preparation for future Mars missions and astronauts from Apollo 14 visited in 1969.

Two lava tube caves—Indian Tunnel and Dewdrop Cave —are open in the summer once snow and ice have melted. You need to obtain a free cave permit from the Visitors Center in person during business hours to enter them. In the winter, the Loop Road is closed to vehicles but open for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. There are plenty of activities to do at Craters of the Moon.

It was really neat to walk among the lava rocks. This was a pleasant surprise. One of our new favorites. Make it a point to stop here if you’re near this area. It’s not that far southwest of Yellowstone and Teton National Parks if you’re visiting those parks.

From May – September 2024, Craters of the Moon National Monument will be celebrating its Centennial Anniversary since its founding in 1924. There will be tons of events for the occasion. Perfect time to go!

Please contact me if you would like to chat about planning a National Park trip.