Day 16 - 1 - Lava Beds National Park

I bet none of you missed me yesterday, but yes, I missed a day. Not on purpose. S just came back from a 3-week vacation to India with a suitcase full of books and food, and I was distracted. Really, that's my excuse.

So I'll do two posts today to make up for it. So, to get on with it - Lava Beds National Park. 
which I wrote about for National Geographic Traveller India

So Lava Beds is a volcanic landscape, frozen in time. The most impressive part of this place is the underground Lava tubes, which are formed by the cooling down of flowing lava (explained in my article above.) Walking through these tubes is absolutely surreal and fascinating.

I recommend a visit to this place - highly.

Skull Cave. This has a year-round ice floor in the lower level. Outside, it was nearly a 100 deg F (39 deg C) Inside the cave, we needed jackets.

Absolutely pitch dark inside the caves. It is frightening to think of what will happen if you are lost in there without torches.

The landscape is desolate, with buttes like this scattered all around (these are little hills formed by volcanic eruptions)

Lava flowing down the walls of the cave, frozen in action

An example of pahoehoe - hardening lava dragging itself forward

Lava dripping down from the ceiling, again frozen.

Can you see the rivers of lava (right in the middle of the picture) - the dark grey strips of rock?

The entrance to many of the caves was like this. Even inside, there were these metal staircases to reach the lower levels

The Modocs lived here for hundreds of years, and a few miles from the Lava tube area is the Petroglyph Point, where we can see their rock art.

A lake on the way to Petroglyph point

This rock was an island once. The art is found on the walls of this rock.

More about this vacation