Crater Rings NNL Elmore County Idaho April 29 2015 by Martin J Grumet

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=sYPe608NkwA

Taken with a tripod-mounted Panasonic ZS50. Alas my speech was obliterated by wind noise. • You may want to hit the mute button and just read the text. • This is Crater Rings National Natural Landmark, approximately 8 miles northwest of Mountain Home, Idaho. • It is not the same as Craters of the Moon National Monument, which is about 100 miles to the east. Being a National Natural Landmark is not as big a thing as being a National Monument. At Crater Rings NNL there are no park rangers, no restrooms, no water, no parking lot per se, and no signs. The craters are visible from aircraft. They are not visible from the nearest paved road or gravel road. Along the rim there was strong signal from T-mobile. There is a portion where I pan to the right to show the communication towers on Cinder Cone Butte, several miles to the west. My guess is that there would probably be no signal down by the crater floor. • They are a pair of volcanic pit craters, and I am on a ridge overlooking the slightly larger east crater. To my right is the smaller west crater, but it is mostly obscured by a little ridge. It would probably not be a very long walk to get a better view, but I was not feeling that ambitious. On the 1½ mile walk up the dirt road I had already gotten close enough to a rattlesnake to get rattled at, although fortunately well out of striking distance. From then on I was more attentive to walk more noisily and be more alert. • Anyway, simplest way to get to the Crater Rings would be to start from Mountain Home or Interstate 84, exit 90. That is the westernmost of the three designated Mountain Home exits, and the most visible landmark is the Desert Winds Chevron and Burger King. (Not to be confused with the Foothills Chevron and KFC by exit 95.) South of the Burger King and Chevron is the Simplot grain silos, and southwest of the Burger King and Chevron is a prominent cliff that has no name. • Heading south from exit 90, make a right turn by the Chevron and Burger King. Heading north on the Sunset Strip from Mountain Home, make a left turn by the Chevron and Burger King. • According to your Google Map, you will be heading approximately northwest on Old Oregon Trail Highway. • BUT the street sign does not say that. The street sign calls it Ditto Creek Rd. Parallel to it are the railroad on your left and Interstate 84 on your right. • So from your turn onto Old Oregon Trail Highway a.k.a. Ditto Creek Road, continue about 5.4 miles to a T in the road. According to your map this is Cinder Butte Road. According to the street sign, this is Ditto Ck and Main Cinder Bt. • Cinder Butte Road a.k.a. Main Cinder Butte is a gravel (or improved dirt) road. There is a marked railroad crossing that you will proceed across. Past the crossing there are some poorly maintained dirt roads to your left that might get you to the Crater Rings, but not my recommendation if you will be walking. About 1.8 to 1.9 miles from your turn from Ditto Ck to Main Cinder Bt there is a poorly maintained dirt road on your left, nicely perpendicular to the gravel road. • This is the road to take, BUT not necessarily in your car. Like the others you passed about 1½ miles back, it is bumpy and rutted. If you have an SUV with good ground clearance, you can probably drive right up it. It is obvious that others have done that, and some in the wet, muddy season to make the road so rutted. If your car, like mine, is not well suited for anything much rougher than Cinder Butte Road, this could be a good place to park next to the dirt road and start hiking. Watch out for rattlesnakes. • About two thirds of the way up there is a barbed wire fence. The main dirt road has an opening with cattle guard, so you can proceed through it. (Be careful doing this on foot.) Anyway, this is a reason why you don't want to go off-trail at least until you get in view of the craters. • The craters are believed to have formed less than 2 million years ago as gigantic bubbles in the lava colapsed. They are well weathered, and there is currently no volcanic activity. • To learn more about the Crater Rings, you can go to: • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_R... • To find these on the map, you can go to: • https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cra... • There is a 10 kilometer cross country race around the Crater Rings called to Crater Crawl. I have not tried this. Their website is • http://www.idahooutdoorassn.org/crate... • Their suggested route from Boise is to take I-84 exit 74 to Simco Road (north) to Desert Wind Road to Till Road to Ditto Creek Road. This does work, however, I don't think that really saves time. • Here is their map • http://www.idahooutdoorassn.org/crate... • Using Simco Rd south is more complicated than it looks on the map, because some gravel road is private.

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