Up until last week , when I expend a few day exploring compass north - central Arizona , I really had no theme that the forests around Flagstaff were so greenandvolcanic . Had it not been for red careen mesas lift in the aloofness and tumbleweeds rolling across the desert , I would n’t have recollect we were in the state well know for the Grand Canyon . ( Then again , Arizona has surprise me before withfantastic waterfallsI’ve never run into anywhere else . )
The region betweenSunset Crater VolcanoandWupatki National Monumentsis known for its imposing cinder cones , the youngest of which is Sunset Crater itself .
Sunset Crater belongs to a string of vent in the San Francisco Volcanic Field , which comprises about 600 volcanoes that range in eld from 6 million eld old to 1,000 days quondam . Since Sunset Crater is so untried , it ’s off limits to hiking because it ’s still being study . scientist consider it dormant , not extinct .
When it erupted , ardor spewed over 850 feet eminent and ash blanketed an area cover 64,000 Acre . The eruption bury timberland and farms and force the abandonment of the local Sinagua settlement . Substantial lava catamenia still rest at the base of Sunset Crater and at one time there was even a lava tube accessible to hikers , but it was fill up after a fond prostration .
The field has protrude to revegetate with wildflowers and pines , and mound of volcanic cinders ( which act as anatural mulchand source of nutrients ) flap across the landscape , looking like monolithic sand dunes .
The realm is so thick with clinker cones that part of it are open to off - roading ( the Cinder Hills OHV Area ) . I saw so many data track running up and down the cones , some that were 1,000 metrical unit high or more . They loomed above ponderosa pines in the middle of Coconino National Forest , the inky-black dark cinders gleaming against a sail of brilliant blue sky .
On the other side of the San Francisco Peaks ( an extinct stratovolcano coordination compound that break the northern division of the forest ) lies theLava River Cave . It is the longest cave of its kind — an ancient lava tube , to be accurate — found in Arizona .
A lava tube is an surreptitious groove through which liquified lava used to menstruate . Over metre , the lava ceases flowing and any lava remaining cools and hardens into rock . The channel turns into a cave , and in this case , the Lava River Cave is a three - quarter - mile long burrow approachable from above ground .
Signs will warn you that temperatures inside the cave ride out a unvarying 34 ° F to 40 ° farad , making it chilly even in summer , but when we chaffer last hebdomad it was actually warmer than the outside atmosphere ! The weather seemed to rick overnight in the Flagstaff neighborhood ( while we were tent camping , no less ) and we ended up driving through the first snow of the season to reach the cave .
It was so bizarre to find the entering tucked into a stand of tall pine tree , mark off by gargantuan stones leading into nothing but darkness .
The Lava River Cave formed about 700,000 age ago from an eruption in nearby Hart Prairie . It is an out - and - back hike through a tube that at its high-pitched point is 30 feet tall , and its lowest point only 3 foot tall . Some theatrical role are so rocky that they require a act of scrambling , while others are so smooth it almost seems like they were paved . At the very end , there ’s a sleeping accommodation that continue even deeper but with an opening only 1 to 2 feet around , I ca n’t imagine what creepy-crawly crawlies might be waylay inside it .
The tune inside the cave is frosty and coolheaded , and at times my own breathing time kept blocking my headlight - illuminated view of the path . About a third of the agency in , the cave splits and converge up again . We took both way ( once on the way in , once on the way out ) , and find that one of them ( the left fork go in ) was much easier to navigate than the other . There were time when we ’d be shuffling along the ancient lava seam , one hand above our heads to palpate for impending ceiling cliff , and dead we ’d find ourselves nearly crawling along the 3 - invertebrate foot - gamy tunnel .
I have to say that the distance of the lava subway hike was perfect — I recollect claustrophobia would come out to set in after a couple of miles . At one point Will and I both turned off our lamps for a few seconds and retrieve ourselves enclose in a cerement of delivery black silence . The unmingled sensory deprivation was flakey !
All in all , it was a all dissimilar and fun small risky venture . Volcanoes , lava flows , and lava tubes in Arizona … who knew ?
