PART 3: Views from the Lava Flow Trail
We will do this trail in the order in which you would see it if you started from the road. When I arrived here at the start of the trail, the sun had not yet risen and I could see part of the towns below the canyon:
The western wall gave nice indications of the sun's progress, a full moon was up:
The next two photos show a brightening rising sun, and more importantly they also she the lava flow for which the trail is named:
The lava flow went way south into the bottom of the canyon:
But the interesting thing about lava flows is the occasional lave tube. When a river of lava runs downhill, where it touches ground and air it cools and hardens into rock but the central part keeps flowing, Some Idahoan and Hawaiian lava tubes are very long and large enough to drive a small vehicle through.
There are only smaller tubes here, and all the ones we see from the trail are largely collapsed:
As you might expect, one needs to be careful in this type of terrain:
This particular tube was on the western edge of the flow just before it descended into the canyon:
Speaking of the lava flow into the western canyon, as compared with the flow toward the south part of the canyon above,here is a view of that flow:
A little spur off this trail takes you to our last stop, the West Canyon Overlook.
See views from the West Canyon Overlook
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