Hiking Panum Crater
Sometimes I find really interesting things by seeing a road sign on the route to somewhere else and thinking, "Huh, we should check that out." Such a serendipty occurred on the drive to Navy Beach at Mono Lake one Monday afternoon. "Panum Crater" a small brown sign read, pointing left to a hill between the road and Mono Lake. We didn't skip Mono Lake to go there instead but rather added to our list of things to do after Mono Lake, as we had flexible time in the afternoon to accommodate doing things exactly like this.
To double our fun we drove to Panum Crater the back way, on dirt 4x4 roads cutting over from the tufa area at the lake instead of driving back out to the road. Driving narrow, empty roads through high desert scrub added to the feeling of remoteness.
"Is it a meteor crater?" I wondered before I arrived. No, it's a volcanic crater. And one fascinating bit of trivia about it is that it's the youngest mountain in North America. It's only 650 years old!
A nice trail led up and over the first rim, then down around and up and over the second rim. The photo above shows the inner rim viewed from standing atop the outer rim.
Like a lot of volcanic areas, this plug dome is full of erratic rocks, mostly rhyolite. Mixed in with it are pumice and obsidian.
The jumble of rocks at the center of the crater wasn't much to look at. It's basically just nature's junk pile; no rhyme or reason. But we did enjoy the many far-off views of the Sierra Nevada's eastern edge, still flecked with snow in June.
In beauty I walk.
Even when the floor is lava.
To double our fun we drove to Panum Crater the back way, on dirt 4x4 roads cutting over from the tufa area at the lake instead of driving back out to the road. Driving narrow, empty roads through high desert scrub added to the feeling of remoteness.
"Is it a meteor crater?" I wondered before I arrived. No, it's a volcanic crater. And one fascinating bit of trivia about it is that it's the youngest mountain in North America. It's only 650 years old!
A nice trail led up and over the first rim, then down around and up and over the second rim. The photo above shows the inner rim viewed from standing atop the outer rim.
Like a lot of volcanic areas, this plug dome is full of erratic rocks, mostly rhyolite. Mixed in with it are pumice and obsidian.
The jumble of rocks at the center of the crater wasn't much to look at. It's basically just nature's junk pile; no rhyme or reason. But we did enjoy the many far-off views of the Sierra Nevada's eastern edge, still flecked with snow in June.
In beauty I walk.
Even when the floor is lava.