Craters of the Moon, located southwest of Arco, will be hosting several celebratory events over the summer as they recognize the 100-year anniversary of one of Idaho’s most famous national monuments and preserves.
Once described by former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge as having “a weird and scenic landscape peculiar to itself,” Craters of the Moon features a vast lava field topography filled with scattered islands of cinder cones and sagebrush.
The cratered alien terrain, which embodies its namesake, is a fascinating geological study that includes more than 60 distinct solidified lava flows which range from just 2,000 years old to 15,000. The blackened expanse of the park features numerous well-preserved lava lakes, explosion pits, and basalt mounds among other unique features, according to the Federal Register.
The three distinct lava fields rest along the Great Rift of Idaho and are comprised of some of the best examples of open rift cracks in the world, including the world’s deepest at 800 feet. Other volcanic characteristics include the preserved cavities of lava-incinerated trees known as tree molds along with features like lava tubes, the largest of which is known as Bear Trap Cave, which is over 15 miles long.
The area also has historical significance for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, who created trails through the lava fields during migrations from the Snake River to the Camas Prairie, which resides to the west of Craters of the Moon.
Thursday marked the official beginning of the centennial celebration when the park was first designated as a national monument in 1924, and the park will be open to visitors through summer and much of the fall.
“This year for the centennial, we’re going to be focusing on five themes that really illuminate and focus on how Craters of the Moon has been established,” said Abigail Jones, the visual information specialist for the southern Idaho parks division of the National Park Service. “The five themes are the rich cultural history, the tranquil wilderness, the robust research, the explosive geology and the expansive night skies.”
When the parks staff was developing the idea on how they wanted to celebrate the centennial they mulled over doing a single day but decided that with a large number of visitors attending the park during the summer they could spend more time covering the different values and features of the park over the last 100 years.
“We’ll be kicking off May with rich cultural history and a lot of that will kind of focus on how this is the ancestral homelands of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes,” Jones said. “It’s been quite a joy because I’ve been working on a project with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. We’re coming up with the new waysides that are going to be displayed in September and it’s showing the perspective from them as well as the National Park Service and how we’ve come to work together to respect this land, love this land and make it accessible for at all.”
Geology and wildflower walks will also be going on throughout the summer with a special centennial walk that began on Thursday that will include a retired park ranger from Craters of the Moon speaking on the history of the last 100 years in the area. Beginning on Saturday, the rangers will also give a presentation known as “The People of the Moon” in the multi-purpose room at the visitor’s center.
Officially designated as a national dark sky park, Craters of the Moon will be hosting an assortment of full moon hikes every month along with star parties for those with an affinity for evening exploration.
“We’ll be having star parties to the where people can come out and look at the night sky and see the Milky Way,” Jones said. “We’ll have volunteer astronomers who reach out with their telescopes of times and sizes, and they’ll be pointing them out in different celestial bodies, so that visitors can actually see them through the telescopes.”
Jones continued, “We’ll have an Astro Ranger who will be giving a presentation before we open the telescope viewing, and this will be about a 45-minute talk on the night skies at craters. That’ll be something that will be happening monthly and we do have those dates posted on the website so you can check those out.”
Through the coming months of the centennial, artists will be putting on demonstrations at Craters of the Moon. For anyone that cannot attend physically, some of the artists will be showcasing a guide on natural journaling at parks in a series of online videos.
“One of our artists-in-residence is a night sky photographer,” Jones said. “He’s going to be pairing up with the star parties and teaching people the tricks of the trade and photographing night skies.”
Whether you are exploring the ashy blackened ocean of basalt that covers the crater-pocked landscape, traversing its many caves and alcoves or simply engaging in a moonlit walk and reflecting on the sea of stars above, there will be plenty of engaging fun and wondrous sights to behold at Craters of the Moon this summer.
“We’ve set this land aside to celebrate what it has been and why it’s special and what makes it unique,” Jones said. “It gives an opportunity for people all over the world to come and view a specific landscape, untrammeled by man. But in that contrast, it also allows us to recognize this wilderness as it has been in a peopled landscape for generations. One of the things that I personally am really proud of is how the National Park Service has started to partner and recognize the Tribes and their presence in this landscape for generations and how we can honor and respect that going forward.”
For more information on Craters of the Moon and its centennial celebration you can check out its website, nps.gov/crmo/index.htm
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