Eas-On Down The Road: An Awesome Week in Arco

Where is Arco? It's in south central Idaho at the intersection of Hwy 93, Hwy 26 and Hwy 20. Leaving Idaho Falls, we went about 65 miles westward to land at Mountain View RV Park in Arco, Idaho. We were able to get into one of their best campsites to enjoy these great views of Arco Peak. The July 4th fireworks display in front of the mountain range was extraordinary as well!

Arco, located about 20 miles east of Craters of the Moon National Monument, served as our homebase for the week. Soon we set out to explore this strange landscape of volcanic origin. Even though you don't see volcanoes anywhere, you do see buttes and cinder cones off in the distance. It seems all this lava oozed out from a big crack in the earth called the Great Rift. Driving through this National Monument, it's obvious that some of the lava flows are more recent than others. Scientists state that the lava began to flow around 15,000 years ago with the most recent flow around 2000 years ago. The seven mile loop road travels by cinder cones, spatter cones, smooth lava, globs of lava, crusty lava, dead trees, live trees and small brushy plants trying to survive in this dry, black rocky environment. It is a very surreal landscape.

To learn more about the history of Craters of the Moon National Monument, click on this link
HERE.
We walked to the top of Inferno Cone for extremely wide views of the surrounding landscape. At 618 feet, the walk up wasn't too bad..it was the walk down that made me dizzy. (Not for Ronnie however, heights don't bother him.)

Views from the top are stunning on this clear, cool day.

The cinder rocks at the top are feather-light and have an iridescent, bubbly appearance.

You can see the Monument's Loop Road off in the distance.

In the lower left corner, you can see a car on the Monument's Loop Road plus the Lost Mountain Range off in the background.

Other paved trails wind throughout the lava flows. Because this landscape resembles the moon's, in 1969 NASA used this area for training astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchel, Eugene Cernan and Joe Engle for basic lava geology.

Spatter cones are formed when lava shoots out from a fissure or crack in hot, molten chunks. These sticky rocks then stack up to create a cone-like form. There are paved trails lead up to the top so you can look down inside them.

One of the spatter cones still had ice inside!

We happened to arrive during the wildflower season. There are over 750 variety of plants and wildflowers here, some of which can only grow in lava cinders.

From a distance the flowers just look like patches of dryish moss but when you observe them up close you see the pops of color and intricate flower petals.

I found the Devil's Orchard Natural Trail quite interesting. The gnarly dead trees and lichen covered rocks created such an amazing variety of nature's textures and patterns.