Daily Archives: August 19, 2014

August 19, 2014 La Pine, Oregon

We didn’t have a reservation at La Pine State Park which is unusual for us during the summer tourist season, but we decided to take a chance since it was the beginning of the week and not the weekend. The camp host showed us several sites to choose from and we happily settled into a nice pull through site with full hookup.

This turned out to be such a fascinating area to explore. We had no idea we would explore a lava tube (cave) and see huge cinder cones and lave flows in Oregon!

We were eager to explore Newberry National Volcanic Monument, established in 1990. IMG_1996 IMG_1994 IMG_1999 IMG_1997Newberry Volcano, central Oregon’s sleeping giant, has a lava flow covering almost 1,200 square miles (about the size of Rhode Island), making it the largest volcano in the Cascades chain. Unlike other volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest, this volcano is a composite volcano with dramatic lava flows that were very fluid during the eruptions, making it similar to volcanoes you would see in Hawaii. Newberry has as many as 400 volcanic vents around its slopes. Newberry Volcano has a large volcanic depression called a caldera. Scientists think the violent eruption which caused the caldera and occurred about 75,000 years ago, is responsible for volcanic ash deposits as far away as the San Francisco area. Newberry Volcano has been erupting over 400,000 years with the last eruption occurring about 1,300 years ago. Geologists say that while it is a sleeping giant, it could reawaken at any time and they monitor it closely.

We drove to the Newberry Caldera and stopped by the Lava Lands Visitors Center which included exhibits and 3-D topographic models of the volcano. We picked up a free pass to drive to the top of the Lava Butte Cinder Cone. The parking area at the top is very small so they limit traffic to 10 cars at a time. The pass gave us thirty minutes to explore the cone. The view at the top was magnificent. This cone is 7,000 years old and the lava flow from this cone once dammed up the Deschutes River. IMG_1991 IMG_2001 IMG_2007 IMG_2011

We drove to an Obsidian Lava Flow and hiked a short distance to stairs that took us to the top IMG_1998 IMG_2041 IMG_2039 IMG_2035 IMG_2033 IMG_2031 of the lava flow. It was amazing to see the huge piles of lava rocks. What makes this lava flow special is the presence of large amounts of obsidian rock (black glass). I spoke with a lady who is an Oregon native. She said there used to be even more obsidian rock many years ago but people over the years carried them off.   Today there are signs warning it is against the law to remove any rocks. The lady also said that there is only one other obsidian lava flow in the world, and that is in Russia.

We read there was a lava cave where we could walk inside a lava flow. So while in the area we went to the Lava River Cave. This is one of the longest, uncollapsed lava tubes in the IMG_2012 IMG_2013 IMG_2015 IMG_2023 IMG_2025

We could see our breath!

We could see our breath!

IMG_2026 Northwest. The cave was once the pathway of an underground stream of molten lava. We knew the cave was going to be cold and dark, so we took jackets and flashlights. We entered the cave and immediately started to descend. The cave stays at a constant temperature of 42 degrees and it was very dark, even with flashlights. We picked our way slowly over rocks and uneven surfaces, occasionally coming to narrow flights of stairs taking us higher and further into the cave. The cave is a mile long and I found it more claustrophobic and unsettling than Bill. I don’t tend to be claustrophobic, but the dark lava walls and rocky uneven surface made me uncomfortable. There were quite a few tourists in the cave and I wondered how those walking with flipflops and using their cameras for light ever made it back out safely.  I read the forest service is working on improvements to the cave with boardwalks over the uneven rocky surfaces and new stairways to make it more accessible to everyone. Hopefully this can be done without destroying the natural setting of the cave. There are bats living in the cave but we didn’t see any.

While at La Pine we got our first taste of cold weather. We awoke one morning to the sound of the heat pumps struggling to keep up and discovered the outside temperature was 38 degrees. Yikes! It wasn’t that long ago we were complaining about the heat. Now instead of searching for a campsite with shade, we were hunting sites with full sun! IMG_2004 IMG_2005 IMG_2006