Craters Of The Moon

Craters Of The Moon - Idaho

Would you believe me if I told you that there's a real moon on Earth? Well... not a real moon, but literally as close as it gets on our planet!

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is located in Idaho in between the small towns of Arco and Carey. Its average elevation is 5,900 feet above sea level. It's a huge area measuring about 1,117 miles squared. There are craters created by a volcano that is more than 2000 years old. If that isn't cool enough for you, get this: The volcano erupts every 2000 years or so, and the last eruption was... Yes, 2000 years ago. This means that the volcano could erupt any day now!!!
It is such a unique place that prior to Apollo 14's launch, NASA sent astronauts to Craters of the Moon to train and practise. It was felt that its inhospitable environment resembled life on the moon.

At Craters of the Moon, there are multiple fun hikes or walks to do. I would recommend all of these hikes for all ages as they're very easy and are mostly on a paved trail. We did the guided tour that took us into caves and lava tubes which are exactly what they sound like- lava that cooled in a tube shape and is now a huge tube. The tour is about one hour long, so pretty short.
Our tour guide told us about the "brownies" made of lava. There are squares that look like overcooked brownies. Those lava chunks cooled very fast. And then there are the under cooked brownies where the top is still mushy... that lava flowed and gradually cooled leaving almost a river shape of ushy gushy brownie mix!

One thing that I found pretty cool was the names of the different types of lava that were around the trail. There were kinda pointy ones that looked like it would hurt to walk on them. They were called Ah Ah as if someone was saying ah ah ah as they walked along the cooled, hard, pointy lava! Other than the Ah Ah, there was nice and smooth lava that looked almost like a pillow. That lava is called Pahoehoe. These names originated from Hawaii and are sometimes hard to pronounce.

Craters of the Moon is a wonderfully awesome place with wonderfully awesome things to do. Also, the rocks everywhere are not like other kinds of rock. They're igneous rocks that are actually from the volcano! It's very hard to resist the temptation to take as many as you can find and bring them home with you!