Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve
Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a U.S. national monument and national preserve in the Snake River Plain in central Idaho. It is along US 20, between the small towns of Arco and Carey, at an average elevation of above sea level.
The Monument was established on May 2, 1924. In November 2000, a presidential proclamation by President Clinton greatly expanded the Monument area. The 410,000-acre National Park Service portions of the expanded Monument were designated as Craters of the Moon National Preserve in August 2002. It spreads across Blaine, Butte, Lincoln, Minidoka, and Power counties. The area is managed cooperatively by the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
The Monument and Preserve encompass three major lava fields and about of sagebrush steppe grasslands to cover a total area of. The Monument alone covers. All three lava fields lie along the Great Rift of Idaho, with some of the best examples of open rift cracks in the world, including the deepest known on Earth at. There are excellent examples of almost every variety of basaltic lava, as well as tree molds, lava tubes, and many other volcanic features.
Geography and geologic setting
Craters of the Moon is in south-central Idaho, midway between Boise and Yellowstone National Park. The lava field reaches southeastward from the Pioneer Mountains. Combined U.S. Highway 20–26–93 cuts through the northwestern part of the monument and provides access to it. However, the rugged landscape of the monument itself remains remote and undeveloped, with only one paved road across the northern end.The Craters of the Moon Lava Field spreads across and is the largest mostly Holocene-aged basaltic lava field in the contiguous United States. The Monument and Preserve contain more than 25 volcanic cones, including outstanding examples of spatter cones. The 60 distinct solidified lava flows that form the Craters of the Moon Lava Field range in age from 15,000 to just 2,000 years. The Kings Bowl and Wapi lava fields, both about 2,200 years old, are part of the National Preserve.
This lava field is the largest of several large beds of lava that erupted from the south-east to north-west trending Great Rift volcanic zone, a line of weakness in the Earth's crust. Together with fields from other fissures they make up the Lava Beds of Idaho, which in turn are in the much larger Snake River Plain volcanic province. The Great Rift extends across almost the entire Snake River Plain.
Elevation at the visitor center is above sea level.
Total average precipitation in the Craters of the Moon area is between per year. Most of this is lost in cracks in the basalt, only to emerge later in springs and seeps in the walls of the Snake River Canyon. Older lava fields on the plain support drought-resistant plants such as sagebrush, while younger fields, such as Craters of the Moon, only have a seasonal and very sparse cover of vegetation. When viewed from a distance, this cover disappears almost entirely, giving an impression of utter black desolation. Repeated lava flows over the last 15,000 years have raised the land surface enough to expose it to the prevailing southwesterly winds, which help to keep the area dry. Together these conditions make life on the lava field difficult.
Climate
History
Native American history
visited the area about 12,000 years ago but did not leave much in the way of archaeological evidence. The Northern Shoshone created trails through the Craters of the Moon Lava Field, during their summer migrations from the Snake River to the camas prairie west of the lava field. Stone circles visible near Indian Tunnel were built by the indigenous people. No evidence exists for permanent habitation by any Native American group. A hunter-gatherer culture, the Northern Shoshone subsisted off of the land's bounty; in addition to gathering edible plants, nuts, roots, and berries, numerous game animals were hunted and trapped, both for meat and supplies, as well as for insulating skins and furs. Larger game hides were used in construction of shelters and windbreaks, while the more delicate furs of smaller mammals were often fashioned into many articles of clothing, used to keep warm; smaller trapped and hunted species included animals such as squirrel, red fox, coyote, river otter, raccoon, pine marten, and rabbit, in addition to numerous bird species. For meat and larger hides, they pursued elk, mule deer, pronghorns, black bears, grizzly bears, bison, cougars, and bighorn sheep – large game, which no longer inhabit the immediate area; these species are still present outside of the park, and in other, further remote reaches of the state. At one time, woodland caribou ranged this far south, likely aiding in sustaining the Shoshone. The most recent volcanic eruptions ended about 2,100 years ago and were likely witnessed by the indigenous peoples. Ella E. Clark recorded a Shoshone story that speaks of a serpent on a mountain who, angered by lightning, coiled around and squeezed the mountain until liquid rock flowed, fire shot from cracks, and the mountain exploded.Goodale's Cutoff
traveling in wagon trains on the Oregon Trail in the 1850s and 1860s followed an alternative route in the area that used trails left by the indigenous peoples which skirted the jagged lava flows. This alternative route was later named Goodale's Cutoff and part of it is in the northern part of the monument. The cutoff was created to reduce the possibility of conflict with the Shoshone along the Snake River such as the skirmish that occurred near modern-day Massacre Rocks State Park.After gold was discovered in the Salmon River area of Idaho, a group of emigrants persuaded an Illinois-born trapper and trader named Tim Goodale to lead them through the cutoff. A large wagon train left in July 1862 and met up with more wagons at Craters of the Moon Lava Field. Numbering 795 men and 300 women and children, the unusually large group was relatively unmolested during its journey and named the cutoff for their guide. Improvements to the cutoff such as adding a ferry to cross the Snake River made it into a popular alternative route of the Oregon Trail.
Exploration and early study
captain and western explorer B.L.E. Bonneville visited the lava fields and other places in the Western U.S. in the 19th century and wrote about his experiences in his diaries. Washington Irving later used Bonneville's diaries to write the Adventures of Captain Bonneville, saying this unnamed lava field is a place "where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awful waste, where no grass grows nor water runs, and where nothing is to be seen but lava."In 1879, two Arco cattlemen named Arthur Ferris and J.W. Powell became the first known European-Americans to explore the lava fields. They were investigating its possible use for grazing and watering cattle but found the area to be unsuitable and left.
In 1901 and 1903, Israel Russell became the first geologist to study this area while surveying it for the United States Geological Survey. In 1910, Samuel Paisley continued Russell's work and later would become the monument's first custodian. Others followed and in time much of the mystery surrounding this and the other lava beds of Idaho was lifted.
The few European emigrants who visited the area in the 19th century created local legends that it looked like the surface of the Moon. Geologist Harold T. Stearns coined the name "Craters of the Moon" in 1923 while trying to convince the National Park Service to recommend protection of the area in a national monument.
Limbert's expedition
Robert Limbert, a taxidermist, tanner, photographer, filmmaker, and exhibit designer from Boise, first came to the area in 1918 after hearing stories from fur trappers about "strange things they had seen while ranging the region". In the early 1920s, he explored and mapped the area, which he described as "practically unknown and unexplored..."Limbert set out on his third and most ambitious foray to the area in May 1920, this time with W.L. Cole and an Airedale terrier to accompany him. Starting from Minidoka, Idaho, they explored what is now the park from south to north, passing Two Point Butte, Echo Crater, Big Craters, North Crater Flow, and out of the lava field through the Yellowstone Park and Lincoln Highway. Taking the dog along was a mistake, Limbert wrote, "for after three days' travel his feet were worn and bleeding." Many of the names Limbert gave to formations and places during his travels are still in use.
A series of newspaper and magazine articles written by Limbert were later published about this and previous treks, which increased public awareness of the area. The most famous of these was an article that appeared in a 1924 issue of National Geographic where he called the area "Craters of the Moon", helping to solidify the use of that name. In the article, he wrote about the beauty of the cobalt blue of the Blue Dragon Flow:
The only visitor center in Craters of the Moon, the Robert Limbert Visitor Center, was named after him in 1990.
Protection and later history
In large part due to Limbert's work, Craters of the Moon National Monument was proclaimed on May 2, 1924, by U.S. President Calvin Coolidge to preserve the "weird and scenic landscape" of the area. The Craters Inn and several cabins were built in 1927 for the convenience of visitors. The Mission 66 program initiated construction of today's road system, visitor center, bookstore, campground, and comfort station in 1956, and in 1959 the Craters of the Moon Natural History Association was formed to assist the monument in educational activities. The addition of an island of vegetation completely surrounded by lava known as Carey Kipuka increased the size of the monument by in 1962.Since then, the park has been expanded. On October 23, 1970, Congress set aside a large part of the monument——as Craters of the Moon Wilderness, protecting that part under the National Wilderness Preservation System. Along with Petrified Forest Wilderness, this became one of the first two designations on land administered by the National Park Service.
From 1969 to 1972, NASA visited the Moon through the Apollo program and found that its surface does not closely resemble this part of Idaho. While the Moon's craters are largely impact craters, those seen at Craters of the Moon were instead created by volcanic eruptions. Apollo astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Eugene Cernan, and Joe Engle performed part of their training at Craters of the Moon Lava Field by learning to look for and collect good rock specimens in an unfamiliar and harsh environment.
For many years, geologists, biologists and environmentalists have advocated for the expansion of the protected area and its transformation into a national park. Part of that goal was reached in 2000 when the monument was expanded 13-fold, from to its current size, to encompass the entire Great Rift zone and its three lava fields. Opposition by cattle interests and hunters to a simple expansion plan led to a compromise of having the National Park Service portion of the addition, which comprises the lava flows, become a national preserve in 2002.
In 2017, the monument was designated an International Dark Sky Park by DarkSky International due to its exceptional preservation of its naturally dark night skies.
Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is co-managed by the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, both under the Department of the Interior; the BLM managing the non-lava grasslands. In March 2017, the Idaho Senate voted in favor of petitioning Congress to designate Craters of the Moon a national park.