05-13-2026 Craters of the Moon National Monument

We messed up and a lot of woulda, shoulda, coulda. Bummer! Bottom line: the visitor center is closed. I should have checked the NPS site, given the current administration's policies on the National Parks. Very frustrating. Oh well, we will still go and see the park.

It is a 1.5-hour drive to the park. Miles and miles and miles of sagebrush. Terribly windy. Nothing but Cows, communications towers on mountains, and yes...sagebrush.

I had full T-Mobile 5-G bars. Why would there be full 5G bars in an area with nothing? Barry says it is because of underground military installations...his conspiracy theory. It’s INL installations, that’s why.

My guess is that there are numerous INL installations along Highway 20, Idaho National Laboratories. We also saw a sign for a nuclear launch pad facility, EBR-I Atomic Museum-a nuclear museum, a radioactive waste disposal site, and lots of power lines. If we had known about the Atomic Museum beforehand, we would have planned that into our day. INL is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy. They own about 569,180 acres or 890 square miles of land west of Idaho Falls. That is 85% the size of Rhode Island. As of 2025, they had 6,400 employees.[1]Amazing what you find when driving in the most remote places.

We arrived at Craters of the Moon around 12:15 PM. We checked out the info signs in front of the visitor center and headed for the 7-mile drive. Our first stop was the North Crater Flow Trail. This was a wooden boardwalk trail built above ground, encircling an ancient lava flow. It gave you an excellent idea of how the lava flowed and what it did. These lava flows looked different than what we saw in Hawaii last November. They did not seem as dark in color as the Hawaii Lava trails. One of the cool things is that the park painted all the curbs and concrete trails a dark gray, so they blended into the park's colors. It is amazing how plants and flowers can grow between the lava flows. At the end of the boardwalk trail, to the left, is a trail that goes up a hill with logs as steps, and you can see the campground amphitheater from the top.

Next was Devils Orchard Trail. This is a short trail, only about 0.5 mile one way, with no elevation gain. This trail is flat, and we could still see some small wildflowers.

I also took a photo of a small type of Beetle. The colors were amazing and fluorescent green. According to Google, it is an Emerald Ash Borer. [2]

Isn't he pretty?

It was interesting to learn how Lichen

plays such a huge role in this area.

This is the plaque I love the most
and is about ToKoa, a Shoshome story.

There are a few pink wildflowers scattered everywhere.

According to Wikipedia, it is a Diplacus, very tiny and dainty.[3]

The next trail we took was to the top of the Inferno Cone. It’s a short trail, up a mountain, 0.4 miles with an elevation gain of 164 feet. The grade is 8.5°. Thank goodness for my strength training workouts. They really helped. Once at the top, the reward is an amazing view of the entire park. It was super windy, and a few times I thought I was going to be blown over. The photos further down show a dark sky, but we only received a few raindrops. The wind was crazy. On the way down, I saw a caterpillar. Don’t ask me why, but the spot I stopped to look at a rock was actually a caterpillar. Why and how that little caterpillar got there and was not blown away is beyond me.

From the Inferno Cone Overlook, we drove to the Spatter Cones. The wear and tear of these has been awful over the years. They now have specific trails you walk on. The plaque below is showing

deterioration over the years below. You can feel the cold air coming up from them, and there is still snow at the bottom of them. The cones have a ton of Lichen on them, so eventually, over the next thousand or so years, they will break down into dirt. This was the last trial we did since it was getting late and we needed to head back. There are more photos below.

We did almost all the trails, except for the Lava Caves. They are closed until June. They still have snow in them. It was a great day, and we learned a lot. We also drove through the campgrounds. Small sites for small RVs and tents. There was no way we would get our 40’ RV in any of the sites.

On the way back, we stopped in the town of Arco to take a photo of the Arco Rec Center sign. The sign on the marquee said, “The first city in the world to be lit by Atomic Power.” You can Google it to see the history. The other thing we saw in Arco was the mountainside north of town, with a bunch of years painted on it. It’s called “Number Hill” and is the Senior year graduating class of Butte County High School. This started with the class of 1920.[4] What a cool idea.

Our last stop was The Celt Pub & Grill downtown in Idaho Falls. We had a great dinner along with a few drinks. I had the Dublin Bloom, and I absolutely loved it, so I had a second. The waiter was kind enough to share the recipe with us, and I’ve included it below. They have a beautiful bar, and everything was YUMMY!!

Dublin Bloom

1.5 oz Teeling Irish Whiskey

.75 Amaretto

.75 Triple Sec

~1 oz. Sour Mix

Serve on ice with a Bordeaux Cherry

[1] “Idaho National Laboratory,” Wikimedia Foundation, last modified May 13, 2026 9:04 PM, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_National_Laboratory.

[2] “Emerald Ash Borer,” Wikimedia Foundation, last modified May 13, 2026, 9:36 PM, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_ash_borer.

[3] “Displaces,” Wikimedia Foundation, last modified May 13, 2026 9:45 PM, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplacus.

[4] “Number Hill,” Wikimedia Foundation, last modified May 13, 2026 10:18 PM, https://www.google.com/search?

Photos from the hike to Inferno Cone Overlook