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Calvin Coolidge called this place "Idaho's national park" 100 years ago

rbarker773

Updated: Aug 28, 2024



Looking out across the Great Rift from Laidlaw Park in Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve


More than 100 years ago Robert “Two-gun Bob” Limbert followed the trails of the Shoshone and Bannock Indians into the heart of Idaho’s Great Rift, a huge volcanic plain that most explorers had avoided and found a natural geologic and scenic treasure now called Craters of the Moon.

The naturalist, photographer, guide explorer, performer and Idaho promoter, described “a vast expanse, silent, dead, except for an occasional bird, a country with cold volcanic mountains, a riot of color and fantastic shape so unearthly as to make one believe himself on another planet.” After a trip sponsored by the Idaho Statesman in 1921, Limbert published his account and photos in National Geographic magazine.

"I offer this as a plea not only to the people of Idaho, but to the entire nation, that they may have a new national park or monument in many respects the equal and in some easily the peer of many of the 45 now within our boundaries," Limbert wrote in the Idaho Statesman.

On May 2 1924, President Calvin Coolidge designated it a national monument, calling it "Idaho's National Park." President Bill Clinton expanded the monument in 2001 after several visits by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who I accompanied.

 The unique area should be a national park but Idaho’s political establishment hasn’t been willing to support it. Now the unique area is called Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. Eight major eruptive periods between 15,000 and 2,000 years ago created the lava flows that make up Craters of the Moon. The lava rose from the Great Rift, a series of deep cracks that stretches 52 miles south from the monument headquarters.

The flows cover 618 square miles, including the smaller Wapi and Kings Bowl lava fields formed 2,000 years ago. In 1969 Apollo astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Joe Engle and Eugene Cernan visited Craters of the Moon in preparation for their moon voyages.

Two agencies manage the enlarged 1,117 square-mile area that includes miles of sagebrush steppe and a primitive road system managed by the Bureau of Land Management.  There are still places where even Limbert never walked for visitors to explore on foot, by car, four-wheel-drive high clearance vehicle and mountain bike. It has a sizable designated Wilderness, 43,000 acres.

We are past the best time to visit is in May and June when the wildflowers like lupine, syringa, blazingstar and hoary aster are blooming, painting the black lava like natural Picassos. Buty its caves give visitors a place to get out of the heat.

The main entrance and visitor center, 18 miles west of Arco, is managed by the National Park Service and open all year.





Some of us wanted to change Crater's status from national monument to national park. Right now, it’s a place people stop to visit on their way to somewhere else. As a national park, it could be a destination. Changing the name, we say, will increase visitation and get more people to visit Butte County, Arco, Carey and other small towns near the otherworldly landscape made famous by Limbert.

Its seven-mile loop road is the centerpiece each visitor should explore. Start at the visitor’s center, where a ranger can help you focus your visit and you can get maps, information and books. Make sure you stop and get gas and snacks in Arco or Carey because there are no services in the national monument.

The next stop is North Crater Flow with its distinctive monoliths rising from the young lava. Several trails from a quarter mile to nearly 4 offer visitors more chances to explore.

At the Devil’s Orchard lava towers rise from the cinders with patches of sagebrush at the next stop. Then on to Inferno Cone, a great example of a cinder cone formed by the volcanic eruptions 2000 years ago.Climb to the top and get a great view of the area including the next stop, Spatter Cones, which are miniature volcanos formed when blobs of lava were hurled into the air during eruptions.

Take the spur road just past Inferno Cone to the Tree Molds Trailhead. This two-mile trail takes you to one of the weirdest features of the monument. Here lava flowed through a grove of trees which burned and released steam, cooling it enough to leave impressions of the charred wood on the surface.

The 1.8 mile Broken Top Trail circles a cinder cone and the Wilderness trail leads to a grove of upright lava molds of standing trees.

The next stop is the trail to the caves, lava tubes formed during the cooling process include Dewdrop, Boy Scout, Beauty, and Indian Tunnels. The half mile hike was a favorite of my kids who got to explore with flashlights dark caverns of weirdness.

Indian Tunnel requires a cave permit.

The loop road’s attractions can be seen in a day or a few days depending on your curiosity. For the day tripper there is more than enough to keep you busy.

If you are making this a weekend trip there is a National Park Service Campground in the monument.  I recommend you don’t limit your trip to the loop road. What’s next? One word: Kipuka.

A kipuka is a piece of land that lava flows surround completely. These islands of sagebrush offer a look at the landscape some untouched or even visited by humans.

There are 550 known kipukas in Craters, ranging from a tenth of an acre to the largest, the scenic 90,000-acre Laidlaw Park. These were among the features that convinced Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and President Clinton to expand the area in 2001.

In Laidlaw Park Babbitt laid a map on a rock with several ranchers in area and worked out the boundaries allowing grazing to continue in the monument managed by the BLM. Today this area offers an adventure experience few visitors have yet discovered.

Get a travel plan map from the visitor center or the BLM in Shoshone or other visitor centers like the one in Twin Falls or Idaho Falls.

From the Craters Visitor Center it's about 25 miles to the Carey-Kimama-Laidlaw Park road where you turn left. About 2 miles you come to a kiosk where you turn right.  It’s a gravel road so most cars can make it fine into Laidlaw Park across Paddelford and Little Kipukas, about 12 miles from the kiosk.

This is a good place to unload the mountain bikes with roads that take you to Big Blowout Butte, Snowdrift Crater, or to the trail of Carey Kipuka. This 180-acre kipuka is loaded with six-foot high bunchgrasses the scientists say have been unaffected by livestock grazing and few human visitors.

It lies in a wilderness study area reached by dirt road you need a four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle or mountain bike to reach.  The hike from the road-closed sign is about 1.5 miles.

Visitors can drive the Carey-Kimama south to Minidoka and the southern end of the monument or the Arco-Minidoka Road. You should have  four-wheel high clearance vehicle for both of these though portions are maintained and gravel.

Features include Bear Trap Cave a large lava tube 150-feet long. And perhaps the most interesting, Kings Bowl, a breathtaking amphitheater-sized cave that requires a permit to explore.  You need to take the Pleasant Valley Road from the south to reach this area the National Park Service hopes someday to develop for easier access and interpretation.

 

 

For more information:


Fee: $8 a week when automobiles can enter the monument but it may rise to $10 after May 15. There is no fee at other entry points into the monument or preserve.




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