The Hole Tourist: Craters of the Moon

As it happens, every now and again, Kevin gets the Road Trip bug. The burning desire to get out of the Hole and into some new adventures. So this past Saturday on a whim we loaded the kids in the truck and headed out for the third closest National Park, Craters of the Moon. This is our 3rd time to this park but our very first in winter. The first trip Kevin and I took for our anniversary a few years ago, the second was with the kids during the summertime.

This trip was magnificent, the loop was closed for the season and is typically turned into a well groomed snowshoeing and cross country ski trail. This years lack of snow however just left the road with a slight dusting.

We didn't get out of Jackson until lunch time, so we arrived at Craters of the Moon about 3 in the afternoon. After a quick stop at the visitor center to get the kids patches for their hoodies and ask about some trails we set out. The ranger at first suggested that we do a short mile hike, after a bit of coaxing and convincing that we were capable of more, he told us that hiking to Devil's Orchard, completing the loop, and walking back would be just about four miles. We had our route and set out for it.

As I mentioned before, the loop road is closed for the season, so we left the truck at the visitor center, ducked under the gate and walked along the snow covered road. This was probably the easiest four mile snow hike we have ever completed. After all, we walked along a slightly snow-covered road, no difficulty in that. It was about a mile and a half to the trail head for Devil's Orchard.

Devil's Orchard is a nice and easy half-mile loop trail that is full of informational boards telling all the woes of Craters of the Moon, the boards are a bit depressing and have an air of condemnation to them. Not very informative about the parks scenery, formation, or even its bountiful and unique foliage, just very arbitrary in its lessons of human impact. No caves can be found along this path, but it is a great trail for overlooking the beauty of the park. It just so happened that there was a full moon, and it just so happened we set out for our hike late enough to see it rise and the sun set, granting us our very first evening hike ever.