Lava Beds National Monument

Driving further towards the inland, we happened to drove past a unique city. How nice!
Q: Where are you from?
A: I’m from Weed!
Q: Is there a lot of Weed there? Having a great time there, yeah?
A: Errr….

It was just a short rest at Weed but we found no Weed there, I swear! (Feeling disappointed :p), we went to further inland towards Lava Beds National Monument, very north of California. This is the site of the largest concentration of lava tube caves in North America. It was established as a United States National Monument on November 21, 1925.

Roughly ninety percent of the lava in the monument is basaltic. As the hot basaltic lava flowed downhill, the top cooled and crusted over, insulating the rest of the lava and forming lava tubes. Lavacicles on the ceiling of a lava tube were left as the level of lava in the tube retreated and the viscous lava on the ceiling dripped as it cooled. Dripstone was created when lava splashed on the inside walls of the tubes.

On our way there, we followed what the GPS showed us. And it led us to a gravel road which was such a rough terrain that our car could get stuck there. Luckily we drove a high elevated Nissan Murano.

Yar, we were quite excited because we didn’t know if the road would lead us to Lava Beds. The scary part was that we saw no vehicles throughout the whole journey and the road was only wide enough for a car to pass through! And also, we couldn’t really make a U-turn either. Stress! Trying to take a photo halfway through the journey just in case we got lost and disappear. At least there’s proof that we drove past the road.

Finally, after a few hours of drive, we finally reached Lava Beds National Monument. Yup, we thought of getting our lunch there but we found nothing there!! We had to survive on granola bars and gatorade for lunch. The nearest known location with food was in a town 2 hours drive away. -Faint-.

We decided to explore a few caves in the area before setting off to Klamath Falls for lunch/dinner. Shall describe them in coming posts.