We decided to take a day trip over to the Sunset Crater National Monument while we were up in Williams (near Grand Canyon) camping. The plan was only to spend a few hours over there, but it ended up being a very long day as a trip took us to more places…
We started at the visitor center and picked up Munchkin’s Junior Ranger booklet for her to work on as we made our way through the park. There were several different locations to stop along the way. Our first stop after the visitor center was a hike up a dormant volcano. It was steep and slippery due to all of the volcanic ash and debris, but we made it!
This was one of our views from the top. It was very easy to see the San Fransisco Peaks. This whole area was filled with “old” volcanoes. The Sunset Crater is believed to be the newest volcano, so that is why the park was named after it.
Sunset Crater was named such because the top of the crater has the colors of a sunset. This picture just doesn’t do it justice. We were told that it’s absolutely stunning at night. You can not climb Sunset Crater due to erosion issues.
Here Munchkin and Daddy are walking down into the lava flow. It was very sharp and hard, so you had to be careful you didn’t slip and fall onto it. The lava flow was much different than we pictured it in our mind. It didn’t have the pretty, ropey type style that you see in many movies/shows. (Obviously, this is an old lava flow, but it didn’t have the folds that I associate with a typical flow…)
Tomorrow, I’ll post pictures from the second half of our day – the Indian ruins.
