Wilderness Trail - Craters of the Moon
6/7/2021: “Wildly Beautiful!” We combined Craters of the Moon Wilderness Trail with the Broken Top Loop trail to make a 11.8 mi hike. We thoroughly enjoyed it and had a great lunch just beyond the end of the trail at the saddle between sentinel Butte and another Butte. We slept well. There were a lot of wildflowers out this time of year. Some I had never seen.
Bitter-root
Marg’s Notes: Craters of the Moon National Monument. Left ~7:30 after breakfast. About 1½ drive to Craters of the Moon. Got here ~8:00. Met a woman from Arizona (Carolyn) who was interested in what to see in Oregon. Drove thru the park to end which was where our hike started. We did the Broken top Loop to Wilderness Trail. Wilderness Trail was supposedly 8 miles out & back but we totaled 12 miles! Interesting hike over lava. Interesting flowers. Rod took lots of pics. Trail ended at Sentinel Butte. Hiked up to saddle for our lunch. Nice view! I was hungry! Hiked out faster than we went in, ~ 2 hours. Whole hike was 5.5+ hours! Tired again! Went to sleep early!
Chimichangas, salad.
More notes: We saw several flowers. Most were of common variety we had seen before. We saw many Bitter-root (Lewisia rediviva Pursh). I believe these are pretty common, but I don’t recall ever seeing them before, at least in full bloom. They are quite beautiful.