Ice Cave, "The Factory", Nature Beauty, and Goodbyes

 July 17 - 25

Thursdays are the day that Emily, the lone ranger for the 54,822 acres of the Monument, is available to come up to the caldera, the busier Lava Lands and the Lava River Cave tieing her up the other days. There is also the ridiculous rule that (local) volunteers can not be up here unless the ranger is - although we are up here every day and are living here without adult supervision. All that to say that Thursdays are busy with activities - and the only day that is, since we also did not hire the 12 seasonal employees for the summer. 

The 17th was a tough day for Emily, and she arrived in tears; her boss had told her to dismiss another volunteer couple based on the complaint of a single visitor and without investigation or speaking to the couple about their side. Activity was the balm she needed, so while I went off with Stephne to measure the lake levels, temps and gas levels of the hot springs, she and Matthew led the guided hike on the Big Obsidian Flow. After the hike she took him off-trail to an obsidian ice cave.

Cool layers

We ended the day with a nice paddle on East Lake to the pumice beach, which we shared with the mergansers. 

Sunday, Matthew and I hiked alongside an old obsidian flow to see a spot colloquially called "the factory".  This area has been occupied for at least 11,000 years, and there are large quantities of chipped stone waste  alongside this obsidian flow, evidence of "work stations" where the obsidian would be rough-knapped into managable pieces that could be carried out and refined later as the need arose.

Obsidian chip waste from ancient people's knapping

Blooming moss

The pumice field behind the obsidian flow - the birds were so numerous and beautiful sounding here - mountain chickadees, red crossbills, yellow rumped wabblers, red-breasted nuthatch, white-breasted nuthatch, evening grosbeak, and clark's nutcrackers.

The top of the flow

Climbed to the top of other side for a view of the central pumice cone and East Lake

Love this piece of obsidian

All too soon it was time to say goodbye to our co-workers, Britton and Stephne Barnes, who were returning to Southern California to start the new school year.  They will be greatly missed!