Excerpts from Among the "Craters of the Moon." An Account of the First Expeditions Through the Remarkable Volcanic Lava Beds of Southern Idaho. National Geographic, March 1924.

In the West the term "Lava Beds of Idaho" has always signified a region to be shunned by even the most venturesome travelers -- a land supposedly barren of vegetation, destitute of water, devoid of animal life, and lacking in scenic interest.

In reality the region has slight resemblance to its imagined aspect. Its vegetation is mostly hidden in pockets, but when found consists of pines, cedars, junipers, and sagebrush: its water is hidden deep in tanks or holes at the bottom of large "blow-outs" and is found only by following old Indian or mountain sheep trails or by watching the flight of birds as they drop into these places to quench their thirst. The animal life consists principally of migrant birds, rock rabbits, woodchucks, black and grizzly bears: its scenery is impressive in its grandeur.

Although almost totally unknown at present, this section is destined some day to attract tourists from all America, for its lava flows are as interesting as those of Vesuvius, Mauna Loa, or Kilauea.

For several years, I had listened to stories told by fur trappers of the strange things they had seen while ranging in the region. Some of these accounts seemed beyond belief.

One morning in May, W.I. Cole and I, both of Boise, Idaho, left Minidoka, packing on our backs bedding, an aluminum cook outfit, a 5x7 camera and tripod, binoculars, and supplies, sufficient for two weeks, making a total pack each of 55 pounds.

We also took with us an Airedale terrier for a camp dog. This was a mistake, for after three days' travel his feet were worn raw and bleeding. In some places it was necessary to carry him or sit and wait while he picked his way across.

Imagine yourself in some gigantic funnel of bright red and black, weird in its reflections of the camp fire, with the stars above. A peculiar feature of the bottoms of the craters was that they seemed to act as sounding boards for the notes of birds migrating northward far overhead. Their faint calls were gathered and intensified until the birds seemed only a few feet away.

The crags had magnetic properties, and the compass needle could not be depended upon when near them. About a quarter mile to the northwest was a large fissure, which we called Vermilion Canyon. The floor, a hundred or more feet in width, was composed mostly of cinders: the walls of lava were a bright, almost a vermilion, red in the sunlight. Near the center were several extinct lava spouts, one of which was 25 feet in diameter and built up so that it resembled the geyser formations of Yellowstone Park.

West of the crater beside Bubble Basin we saw channels winding through the lava flat just as meandering books might cross a level meadow. Examination showed these to be lava gutters. Here the plastic lava had flowed down grade, assuming all the shapes of a mountain stream. It was in waves, rolls, twists, and levels.

As we stood on the edge and looked down, we tried to imagine the wonderful sight when the whole lava bed was glowing red.

Traveling northwest for a mile, we came to another Indian marker -- a pile of rocks. It had a smaller pile at the base and, in a line with it, about 20 feet distant, at the base of a cliff, was the entrance to a cave that opened up into a room 18 feet wide by 12 feet high. From the ceiling hung clusters of immense ice stalactites, sometimes touching a few stalagmites of the same material below. The floor was covered with ice so clear that when I first reached it I dipped down for a drink.

While proceeding east, Martin and I happened to leave the others to climb a low mound in the flow. From this vantage point we sighted a lake a half mile long and, to the south of it, what appeared to be a grove of willows and cottonwoods. Turning the binoculars on the scene heightened the effect, and we decided to walk to another elevation, a mile and a half farther along, where we could look down in the basin. When we got there we sat for a few moments examining it, still apparently three miles off, when suddenly lake, trees and all floated away and disappeared in the distance. We had been the victims of a mirage.

Stretching to the southwest for a distance of about 11 miles, we saw perhaps one of the most remarkable lava flows in the world. Its color is a deep cobalt blue, with generally a high gloss, as if the flow had been given a coat of blue varnish. The surface is netted and veined with small cracks, having the appearance of the scales of some prehistoric reptile. Mr. Israel C. Russell, at one time of the United States Geological Survey, called it the Blue Dragon Flow. It merits the name, as in many places it has burst through the crevasse of an older flow, and the ropy twists of blue lava, spreading out in branches, together with its scaled surface, need but a little stretch of imagination to suggest the claws and legs of a dragon.

It is the play of light at sunset across this lava that charms the spectator. It becomes a twisted, wavy sea. In the moonlight its glazed surface has a silvery sheen. With changing conditions of light and air, it varies also, even while one stands and watches. It is a place of color and silence, the latter broken only by the wail of coyotes and chirps of the rock cony.