Moments in Dirt and Ink

Tonopah Field Office BLM ( map link ) "The Crater" proclaims the map as if, although there may be others around, there's certainly none of this stature. I left my camp just north of (or maybe within) the Silver Peak caldera and headed for it. First I stopped at Coyote Spring (a small swampy area beside the road surrounded by parched land) and the Silver Peak cemetery , then north to The Crater. I found parking along the side of the highway as it loomed at the edge. It looks like there's an even more commonly used area slightly north of The Crater. I aimed to go around it as I had with Lunar Crater and Easy Chair Crater . The road to Silver Peak with some other dark bumps out in Clayton Valley. The Crater rising from Clayton Valley. USGS shows some track roads on The Crater. The one on the south side goes to a "cinder pit". There's an Earthcache for it that happens to mention some trail, too, with a warning against trying those roads no ma...

Tonopah Field Office BLM ( map link ) One of the larger cinder cones in the volcano field around Lunar Crater is Easy Chair Crater. There is a thin, but smooth enough, road off the scenic backcountry byway past Lunar Crater at the first (from the north) cow water, then keep left at the Y. There is a small dirt lot and a sign for Observation Point Trail. It's a short route from the parking area to the low point of the crater. Lunar Lake and the nearby buttes of the Pancake Range from the edge of the parking area. The trail to the edge of Easy Chair Crater. My plan was simple: head up to the observation point and then around the edge of the crater. The high point is marked on Peakbagger as "Easy Chair Butte", so I figured I'd tag that when nearby. The crater is particularly asymmetric and the high point is off the edge of it. There is an Earthcache that suggests it is possible this crater grew out of the side of an older one to make it so lopsided, but the...

Tonopah Field Office BLM ( map link ) I traveled the Extraterrestrial Highway (NV-375) looking longingly at the several good roads extending north past varied and beautiful mountain ranges. All missed on this trip. It's much more interesting than the area to the south, which is off limits testing grounds and supposedly includes "Area 51". Circling around on US-6 and then following an actual sign for my destination, I arrived late in the afternoon at a small volcano field full of little craters and the odd lava flow. Among all these little cinder cones is one oddity: Lunar Crater, a maar crater. Lots of cinder cones in the distance. While the nearby craters are formed from pressures deep within the earth finding a weak spot to spew new rocks, which then collect in the vicinity, the maar crater forms when water suddenly encounters hot magma and the resulting water vapor provides the explosive energy to blast away the rocks already there. The maar crater called...

Lassen National Forest (map link) I had seen the Spattercone Trail on the map and instantly wanted to do that. Disappointedly, I found the gate closed on the parking lot, but could just fit off the road. Disappointment came again when I saw a sign saying it was closed by a forest order. Strangely, there wasn't an actual copy of the order, which there usually is. A number means little to me. I looked it up, and found it to be an expired order for the Dixie Fire. Then, for my due diligence, I checked the Alerts and Notices of Lassen National Forest and found nothing replacing it. Well, say no more. I was off, but first I had to put on my microspikes again having been sufficiently alert to notice the area was not dissimilar to an ice skating rink. The trailhead on the other side of the ice. It includes information signs related to the local area. I didn't need the spikes for the trail, which starts off as an accessible route on compacted granite. There are information ...

Coconino National Forest Click for map. I seem to be collecting fire lookouts, but the inclusion of Wing Mountain on the list of Arizona lookouts on Peakbagger wasn't what got my notice. It was the simple fact that the quad west of Humphreys Peak is named for Wing Mountain. I'm a bit suspicious about it being a lookout because there is not so much as a trail going up it, much less a road that is common for such things. People who have climbed it seem to have just picked a side and gone for it. I picked the side where there is a shoulder called Little Wing Mountain so I could climb and get the benchmark, then move nearly halfway around the crater to the high point. It is a side that looked highly climbable from afar, which seems like another plus. Forest road 222 (Wing Mountain Road) in seems generally maintained, but 519 only happens to be passable for my little car by a bit of luck. I park at 9230C where someone has had a camp site. It is a little way down the hill fro...

Coconino National Forest Click for map. Old Caves Crater boasts a different sort of ruin, from people who made their homes among the small "caves" of gas bubbles in the old lava rocks. Unfortunately, some of the different character of this one is "heavily disturbed", as the kiosk at the start warns me. This was the last known Sinagua settlement in the area, but there are a couple more "excavation-quarry settlements" like this one in the area to the east. Anyway, it's a short trail, so no harm in going to see. I'll tag the peak, too. The settlement is quite close to the top. Kiosk full of information and a trail register full of people who probably won't be getting lost. It's a wide path through the cinders surrounded by ponderosa. There seem to be quite a few extra paths as well. It's generally clear which is the official one. There are signs for the loop around the bottom to the west and later the one to the east. I fol...

Coconino National Forest Click for map. I almost went for O'Leary Peak instead of the wanderings I did on the fee free day, but it is actually just outside of the monument and requires no fee, so I came back for it. It didn't take long. Today I'll make my way to the lookout, which has road all the way up, then decide what I feel like stopping by on the way down of the various smaller peaks near the road. Three other cars have beaten me here. Gate and trail sign on the road to the lookout on O'Leary Peak. The road rolls a little, first dropping and then rising, as it wanders the forest toward the base of the volcano that holds the lookout. Trees and cinder and only the slightest undergrowth stretch out every way. It swings northward as it comes to the edge of the Bonito Lava Flow. Little signs march along the imaginary line between forest and monument as it cuts through one corner of Sunset Crater National Monument. Quite the nice road up to the looko...

Coconino National Forest Click for map. There is not really anything about this spot, one of the 600+ volcanoes in the area, to set it apart. I wanted to find five geocaches today and it has five challenge caches I qualify for ringing its top. Although unnamed, its crater bears the name "Walker Lake" on the USGS map. A road once circled this little pond, but vehicles are no longer allowed. The roads to it are a little rough, but I could have driven my little car a bit closer. There just didn't seem to be any point to it since I have time and walking is good for me. The forest low down on the plain seems a little dark and brooding, but it brightens once I get climbing. It's not that far. Following the road in the trees and almost to the top. Faint paths break off right and a little later left as the road reaches the lowest spot on the lip of the crater. The track seems to vanish just past the top, but the rest of it can be seen below and circling the la...