StevenI hung around the hotel in Jackson and took my time packing this morning. I had a 5 hour 45 minute drive from Jackson, WY to Stanley, ID.
On the way, almost halfway, was a place I thought would be interesting to stop at: Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. It’s full of lava flows, cinder cones and sagebrush. It’s very ‘other worldly’ landscape and is really weird to see in the middle of all the surrounding mountains.
The weather was incredibly ridiculous. It was 45 degrees with a constant wind of 25mph, sometimes gusting to who-knows-what. Needless to say, this was my quickest visit to a national park, even though it’s quite small.
The thing I like most about this park is there’s a single loop and it goes one way. No dealing with oncoming traffic!
The first stop past the entrance is the North Crater.
Next was the Devil’s Orchard which was a half mile walk. This is probably the fastest I’ve ever walked a half mile while taking pictures. The wind was unrelenting and it was freezing.
Next was a little turnout on the way to the next location. According to the sign (that I speed read because it was so cold), these flowers bloom every time it starts getting warm. It’s weird how they’re almost perfectly spaced out like they were planted that way.
Next up was probably my dumbest idea of “yeah, I can run up this hill real quick and get some pictures up top.” The climb was very steep up the Inferno Cone. It’s 0.4 miles of pure steepness. Thankfully the wind was at my back so it sort of helped push me up the hill.
Once at the top, my hood blew down, my jacket turned into a parachute that tried to pull me off the top, and my beanie almost blew off my head.
I snapped a few quick pictures and got down off that hill as quick as I could, with the wind blowing against me the whole way.
At one point I couldn’t hold my beanie on and take a picture at the same time, so I ended up biting my beanie while I quickly snapped a few shots.
Next was the Splatter Cones. The parking lot had a nice view!
The splatter cones were miniature volcanoes at one time.
On the way out was a cave you could explore, but only with a free permit from the visitor center. When I went there, people were lined up for a permit, so I said ‘forget it’ and went on. I still had a 2.5 hour drive until I reached Stanley.
Then the snow started. Lots of snow. As I was entering a mountain pass.
There are supposed to be mountains in front of me:
It snowed the whole time until I got to the top of the pass and started my decent. It got a little intense at points as there aren’t always guard rails on the sharp turns.
Coming down the mountain, there was a turn off point where I was able to get a pretty cool picture of the storm.
I finally made it to Stanley and checked into my hotel. I must say, the view isn’t half bad.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow. The high is only 52 and I’d rather not get myself sick by taking a long hike. I do have quite a few photography spots marked out that are a short drive from town. For some reason, I only booked two nights here, so I’ll have to do a lot tomorrow!