Storm Lashing

Crossing Nevada from Tahoe to Idaho took me through the Great Basin or what could be called a Middle Latitude Desert. Pretty sparse. Once in Idaho I was still in the Great Basin but the climate switched to a Middle Latitude Steppe where irrigation allows crops to be grown including the Idaho Potato. Huge irrigation systems spread across the flat landscape. Some irrigation systems go in a circular pattern and some just go straight across a field. I know that from the air, you can see the patterns of the circular irrigation. Giant circles touching in a pattern.

On the drive I kept seeing these long warehouse structures that were low to the ground and covered with sod. Turns out they are to store potatoes and are basically underground. Crops can spend the winter in them without heat or cooling. As another note, the manure smell in Twin Falls was from slaughter houses not spreading manure. Oh joy!

As I got closer to Craters of the Moon National Monument I could see flows of dark rocks jumbled everywhere. Craters of the Moon does not have one giant crater/lava cone but a series of little spatter cones. The Snake River Plain (also called the Great Rift Volcanic Rift Zone) arcs across southern Idaho from Twin Falls to Idaho Falls and on to Yellowstone. The plain marks the passage of the Earth’s crust over an unusual geologic heat source that now brings the inner workings of the earth so close to the surface at Yellowstone. This same hotspot that is under Yellowstone now is the same one that created Craters of the Moon.  Craters of the Moon has experienced a series of lava eruptions through parallel fissures in the earth’s crust in the Great Rift Valley. The first eruptions were 15000 years ago down towards Twin Falls and have erupted every 2000 years  since, slowly moving north east over the hotspot. So there is a series of spatter cones running all along the line from Twin Falls to Yellowstone. It is time for another eruption give or take a 1000 years.

When you first see Craters of the Moon all you see is black but then as you look closer you start seeing vegetation starting to creep its’ way into cracks and crevices and colorful lichen clinging to the rocks. It seems pretty ugly at first but then it grows on you. The place was named in 1920 and it looked like what they could see of the moon but the moon’s craters are made from meteorites and are not volcanic.

When I was driving to “the Moon” the wind was strong and it was only 49 degrees and then it got colder and the wind picked up and was going a full 50 mph with gusts up to 55 mph when I was trying to erect my tent. The place is full of three kinds of lava, one of which is “cinders” and the cinders were flying and black grit was flying. After about two hours and finally putting lava rocks over my tent stakes I finally got my tent up and storm lashed.  The wind was so strong it was pulling out the tent stakes. I even had lava rocks inside to keep the floor of the tent from trying to fly away. Storm lashing is a set of extra ropes crossed over the tent and tarp to help hold them down. Luckily I had recently bought some extra stakes so that I had enough to do the job. Freaked me out actually!

I stayed at “The Moon” for 4 nights.  I did a bunch of day hikes to points of interest and hiked up a giant cinder cone and almost got blown off. One day I took a ranger led hike to some lava tunnels. The lava hardens on the outside and the hot lava continues to run through and leaves tunnels. One day I hid in bed until 11 and then drove to Arco and had a huge meal and hid out in my car. The wind just did not stop and sometimes brought rain splatters and snow squalls despite the temps at 39 degrees. It was very wearing to be out in such wind with the insidious grit everywhere.

Finally escaped from there on Friday morning and headed for Jackson and the Grand Tetons. I went up the foothills and over two passes and came out on Jackson Hole where my friend and sorority sister, Mary lives. I had always pictured Jackson Hole to be a narrow Swiss-like alpine valley and had a shock when I discovered it was a very wide plain almost. Teton is the touristy funky center and Jackson is for the real folk. Mary has graciously offered me a bed here for the week and I am lovin’ it already! She also has a Scamp trailer that we will take up to Yellowstone.

Since I have been in Jackson it has been spritzing rain and snowing so we have revved up the wood stove and enjoyed lazing around. There are some wonderful birds such as the Western Tanager in her vicinity as well as a variety of hummingbirds and a pair of huge Magpies with a nest in a nearby tree. The tanagers are bright yellow with crimson heads and I saw four all at once yesterday.

The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow and the rest of the week so we will venture into the Grand Tetons National Park area then.