All too soon, though, the blistering heat returns. The land dries. The streams slow to a trickle. Life congregates around tiny springs. As the water bubbles up from the ground, it creates an oasis in a dry land.
Life is sustained for yet another year.
The desert is a vast landscape of rock walls of weathered rhyolite, where beauty lies around the next bend. Or sometimes, just under the surface. Outside Shoshone, Idaho, a group of cavers explores a lava tube named Jawdropper. The lava flowing out of a volcano seeks the low spots like a river does, the valleys and the low spots, and flows along. As it flows, the outside crust cools while it is still flowing inside.