I love our National Park Pass. It makes making multiple trips to Crater Lake seem perfectly sane. This was our third visit to the park. We drove around the entire lake on this trip and hiked down to see the lake at it’s surface for a different perspective. I prefer the eastern side of the park to the hustle and bustle of Rim Village.

We camped at Union Creek Campground about 20 minutes outside the park. In this area the Rogue River channels into a narrow gorge. There is also an area nearby called “Natural Bridge” where the Rogue disappears into a 250 foot long lava tube and comes out the other side. There is a nice path along the river and it is a beautiful area. Unfortunately, the lookout points were poorly placed and creating a pleasing composition of the phenomenon is next to impossible.  We made a detour on the way home to Pearsoney Falls.

This post has been a long time coming. We visited this monument on our return home from the Painted Hills, but I ran out of room to upload photos on the blog, so couldn’t post it at the same time. My mom rocks, and transferred the blog over to a domain where I am not limited on how many photos I upload (yeah!). We have been busy, (I started a new job with  2 hours of driving each day…yikes!) and we continue to explore Oregon on weekends, so I have some catching up to do!

Back to the post; we were driving along Hwy 97 on our return home from the Painted Hills when a huge cinder cone came into view, followed by a sign for the monument. I lit up like a kid and looked at Rob with enthusiasm, asking “can we please?”. We were tired from our weekend of camping in triple digit temps, but Rob is a trooper and took the exit. How did I not know about this? The area of the monument we visited is called “lava lands” and the cinder cone you see pictured below is “lava butte”.  The monument is huge and includes a lava cave and two crater lakes. We did not have the time or energy to explore the entire monument, but I do hope to return to this fascinating place.

Newberry Volcano is the largest volcano in the Cascades volcanic arc. It has been referred to as “Oregon’s sleeping giant”.  Newberry is a shield shaped composite volcano with 1,200 square miles of lava flows. There is lava dating up to 400,000 years old and the last eruption was 1,300 years ago. Newberry is monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey and is considered a “high risk” volcano with a relatively recent eruption and a population of over 200,000 living nearby. In 1981 a drill hole recorded temperatures over 500 degrees Fahrenheit at a depth of 3,000 feet, indicating an active magma system beneath the volcano. Scientists believe that Newberry is certain to erupt again.