Logging tasks
- Visit the location, and tell me everyone you are submitting answers for.
- By looking at the holes/impressions how can you tell that it had been a tree?
- If there are bark patterns how do they compare with the trees nearby (you might want to check on your way to the impressions or on the way out
- Do you think this lava was moving quickly or slowly (based on the impressions) and say why.
Intro
The hike is not very difficult and two miles long (unless you are not used to the altitude). Beware in the summer, higher temperatures can make the hike difficult without enough water. No bikes or pets on the trail.
Original flow
Towards the end of the hike you can see to your East a cinder cone that formed, eventually the lava that poured out covered much of this area. It flowed into this area about 6000 years ago, and was called the Sawtooth North Flow . In the next 3000 years many trees took root on this lava flow. Eventually there was another lava flow.
Blue Dragon Flow
Eventually another flow took place, it is named the Blue Dragon flow. It was one of the last lava flows that took place in this area. It was about 2,000 years ago. By this time the trees on the Sawtooth north flows were growing and the lava that poured from the Blue Dragon flow surrounded them and burned them away. Leaving only the fossil forms of them remaining. Well not only that, some charcoal has been found from some of the old trees.
Leave no Trace
Remember as you visit these sites to practice Leave No Trace. Please stay on existing trails and roads, and do not gather or take anything. We want these locations to be as good as you are seeing them for future generations. Take pictures and enjoy the locations, but leave the rocks and plants behind.
Information for this cache comes from "Geology of craters of the Moon" by Douglass Owen, and Sonja Melander; USGS geological map of the Inferno Con Quadrangle by Kuntz, Lefebvre, Champion and Skipp.