Us vs. the Volcano

[olmue]

We have got to get back to green places, but today was our volcano discovery day. I've been up this one before, but my husband hadn't, so we went up Menan Buttes today. They are twin volcanoes that are the only ones in North America to come up through fresh water (the Snake River used to flow here). The whole landscape below is lava flow--not stuff that dripped off these volcanoes, but just oozing, bubbling lava for miles and miles and miles. I'm thinking that millions of years ago, Idaho was a pretty miserable place to be. It's always weird to get on a mountain and look down at Idaho. You have lava and marsh and river and sagebrush and tuff (volcanic ash turned to stone) and obsidian and sand dunes and lush aspen groves and lodgepole pines and huckleberries and wheat and potato farms. It's just a weird combination!

Anyway, there are all kinds of caves and holes in the rocks.



Climbing up was fine on the rocks but slick on the grainy volcanic sand. Hence the chains.



The caldera:



You can walk around the rim of the caldera. We went halfway and came back, because the other way involved quite a descent and ascent, and we were fielding QUITE a lot of complaints by that point. (I'm hot! I'm tired! Meine Fuessen sind wie Steine! Well, something to that effect... Of course, on the way down, those same complaining kids announced that they LOVED this mountain! Um, yeah. Someday they'll have kids of their own, and I WILL REMIND THEM OF THIS, mwahaha!)



There were these pretty flowers at the bottom. They're the same color as thistles, except they are something else. (I used the Orton effect on these from Picnik, for full disclosure.)



I think I'm more than ready to send everyone off to school now. Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Comments

[robinellen.livejournal.com]

Nice view :) Very cool stuff -- no calderas in CO, that's for sure (I'm not even sure that we have any volcanoes...).

[olmue.livejournal.com]

I had no idea Idaho was so volcanic until we moved here! I mean, my mom talks about playing on the lavas when she was small, but for some reason I thought it was a tiny, unique occurrence. Um, no. We are well stocked in lava, thank you very much! :)

[rosefiend.livejournal.com]

The flowers are related to Cleomes (spider flower) -- same blossoms and seed pods. I couldn't tell you more than that because your flowers are so different than Missouri flowers!

*can't resist; starts Googling*

Is this your flower? http://www.larkspurbooks.com/cleomaceae.html

[olmue.livejournal.com]

Yes! You are good with the Google. :) I'd never seen them before, and had no idea how to figure out what they were. There are so many different landscapes here that sometimes you get confused about which one to look up. :)

[rosefiend.livejournal.com]

It helps that I used to be a horticulturist!

[lloveland.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love that picture you took of the flowers, what photo editing software do you have?

We took our kids on a hiking vacation this summer to VT and NH. They LOVED it (heavy sarcasm.) At one point I took my iphone out to video tape them whine so I could show it to them when they were older, my mom has similar footage of me (in Idaho) on a hike.

[olmue.livejournal.com]

You know, some years aren't so bad, but lately our kids have been grumpy when it comes to doing fun things! Sure hope that changes someday.

I just use Picnik (picnik.com?). It's free. But it used to be very basic, and just recently they added "effects" that you can use. The flowers were done with the Orton-ish effect, whatever that is. It does saturate the colors some, which is nice when you've taken a photo with bright daylight right overhead and don't have much contrast.