Friday, October 1, 2010

Lava Butte

Today Kendall and I drove up to the top of Lava Butte to take some pictures. Lava Butte is a cinder cone that juts up out of a lava flow outside of Bend. It's really spectacular to see and gives you a great view of the surrounding area. The nice thing was, it's one of the places that's included in our Northwest Forest Pass.
Image from the US Forest Service site
I've included a photo taken from the air because you just can't get a real feel for it from the photos I took. The road up winds around the outside of the cinder cone and stops on the top lip of the crater.

The view looking out from the parking lot at the lip of the crater

Mt. Bachelor


The other day I posted a picture looking out over the meadow with Lava Butte jutting up out of the landscape.
Lava Butte way in the background
 Well, here's a picture from the top of Lava Butte looking out over the meadow. The meadow is the yellow area in the back of the picture. They're doing controlled burns in the area, so that's smoke you can see hanging in the hills.

Looking out from Lava Butte over the meadow
Once you get up to the parking lot, you can climb even higher on a steep path up to the fire lookout tower. I left Kendall in the car while I walked up there. You can see her in the window of the VW station wagon.



This run of nice weather is supposed to end tomorrow. Perfect timing since the September adventures have run into October, and it's time to wrap up this vacation.

1 comment:

Cavaliers Corner said...

Great photos Gretchen and Kendall looks very satisfied with his holiday. Thanks for leaving your kind comment too. I am really determined to do this. Got a pedometer today left at my door with a bag of goodies - a government initiative to get people to be travel smart and use their cars less. What timing is that!!! Amazing because I was going out to buy one tomorrow anyway. Happy you enjoyed your holiday.