You can see most of the features for which Craters of the Moon is famous by a combined auto and foot tour along the Loop Drive. With several short walks included, you can make the drive in about two hours. Numbered stops are keyed to the map in the park folder.

1. Visitor Center. The 7-mile Loop Drive begins at the visitor center. Most of the drive is one-way. Spur roads and trailheads enable you to explore this lava field even further.

2. North Crater Flow. A short foot trail crosses the North Crater Flow to a group of crater wall fragments transported by lava flows. This is one of the youngest flows here. The triple twist tree and its 1,350 growth rings have in the past helped date the recency of the last flows here. Along this trail you can see fine examples of pahoehoe lava and aa lava flows (see page 26). Just beyond the North Crater Flow Trail is the North Crater Trail. This short, steep, self-guiding nature trail leads you to the vent overlooking the crater of a cinder cone.

3. Devils Orchard. Devils Orchard is a group of lava fragments that stand like islands in a sea of cinders. This marks the resting place for blocks of material from the walls of North Crater that broke free and were rafted here on lava flows. The short spur road leads to a self-guiding trail through these weird features. You can easily walk the trail in about 20 minutes. An early morning or evening visit may allow you to observe park wildlife. In springtime, the wildflower displays in the cinder gardens are glorious. In June and early July, dwarf blooming monkeyflowers give the ground a magenta cast.

4. Inferno Cone Viewpoint. From the viewpoint atop Inferno Cone, a landscape of volcanic cinder cones spreads before you to the distant mountain ranges beyond. Notice that the cooler, moister northern slopes of the cones bear noticeably more vegetation than the drier southern slopes, which receive the brunt of sunshine. If you take the short, steep walk to the summit of Inferno Cone, you can easily recognize the chain of cinder cones that defines the Great Rift. Perhaps nowhere else in the park is it so easy to visualize how the volcanic activity broke out along this great fissure in the Earth. Towering in the distance above the lava plain is Big Cinder Butte, one of the world’s largest, purely basaltic, cinder cones.

5. Big Craters and Spatter Cones Area. Spatter cones formed along the Great Rift fissure where clots of pasty lava stuck together when they fell. The materials and forces of these eruptions originated at depths of approximately 40 miles within the Earth. A short, steep walk to the top of Big Craters offers a view of a series of volcanic vents.

6. Trails to Tree Molds and the Wilderness Area. A spur road just beyond Inferno Cone takes you to trails to the Tree Molds Area and the Craters of the Moon Wilderness. Tree molds formed where molten lava flows encased trees and then hardened (see page 27). The cylindrical molds that remained after the wood burned and rotted away range from a few inches to more than 1 foot in diameter.

7. Cave Area. At this final stop on the Loop Drive, a ½-mile walk takes you to the lava tubes. Here you can see Dewdrop, Boy Scout, Beauty, and Surprise Caves and the Indian Tunnel. (For how these lava tubes formed, see page 30.) Carry a flashlight in all caves except Indian Tunnel.