The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-04-14

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of discord. Once, In the night,
horned owl hooted somewhere in TIN
depths; the result can be imagined
Echo Crater" is about quartz
of mile wide and about 700 or pos
sibly 500 feet deep. The east sid
has preached away until 1t is per
haps 100 feet from top to bottom
This is one Of the few craters in thu
district having trees in Its interior
and is probably one Of the older ones
As one stands in the center he car
see that there have been two explo
sions. the first forming the crater
and the second blowing out depres
sion in the bottom which became
filled by debris falling back in.
One day in crossing the southern
end Of this crater, we climbed ridge
that we might get better view Of
the surrounding country and found
the top pitted with a series Of four.
teen craters, nine Of which we're OF
the small blowout or explosive type,
One OF the larger holes went straight
down and then right angled of to the
south. There was narrow crack
down which we climbed to the bot
tom. CHANGING upward we could see
large pendant clots Of lava where the
plastic substance ran back down the
sides during the eruption. The end
of the funnel branched off and was
full of drifted snow, so we could not
| be sure whether or not it extended
any distance.
AS we left this hole and continued
along the ridge we noticed imprints
| were large bear had sat on his
launches looking out over the i'm
mense fields of lava below. The
cinder slopes are. covered with wild
onions and these, together with ants
and pinion pine nuts, form the only
means of existence that bears can
have in the region.
Sometimes as we travelled along
we would find small rock piles made
by the Indians. Generally they had
a piece of sagebrush pointing out
from one side, a few had smaller
pile at their side. Several places
were found on the bare lava where
a rock had been laid down on a piece
of sagebrush. These always pointed
to cave or water hole. In the in
stances where sage was used it was
so decayed and weather beaten that
it crumbled to our touch. The trail
was marked in this fashion across
the smooth Pahothoe flow. At times
the old trails could be followed some
little distance by the gray streak
across the bare rock worn by ages
of travel.
I One day, as we climbed up a cinder
slope, we came on crater with rings
of green and yellow, one above the
other. There was also very faint
intermediate shade of blue; this was
the only instance of sulphur deposit
we noticed.
From one point we counted the re
mains of sixty-three craters; rocks
thrown in some of them we're never
heard to hit bottom. In one we com
bined our strength and rolled
huge boulder the size Of a kitchen
range over the, edge and, tho we lis
tened closely, we never heard the
faintest sound indicating it had
reached the bottom. Ii was with {
mingled feeling of awe and aprre
sension we, left these rlanes.
In all my experience in the bill
and mountains | never have seen
place like this, where one is con-
tinually finding something new and
peculiar to draw one on. At times
our packs seemed to weigh ton and
under ordinary circumstances we
would have stopped for a rest, but we
hurried on, led by curiosity and de-
sire of finding something new to talk
aobut.
At one place we came to place
where frothy mass Of the lava had
cooled, leaving a number Of immense
bubbles Of solid, rock. A few of them
had fallen in on one side, disclosing
rooms where a dozen persons could
have found shelter. A peculiar fea-
ture of the lava points that jutted
up, here and there over the plain was
that they were magnetic and a com
mass held near them was thrown off
it's bearing so much that at one place
the north end pointed almost due
south. We had to be careful in TAX
ing compass bearing Of the things
located that they were not affected
by some such attraction.
Our course took us to the ice caves
discovered on the trip of the year
previous. Imagine going down into
the depths of the earth and finding q
room solidly coated with ice about
two inches thick, from the roof of
which hang pendants icicles some five
to eight feet long. Also try to
imagine the reflections from light
in such place. We continued down
this passage until it narrowed and
sloped more abruptly downward
where we feared to slip and slide be-
cause we did not know where 1t
would take us. The tips of several
icicles were broken off and thrown
and we could hear them sliding for
at least hundred yards. There are
seven of these natural ice caves in
Idaho and believe some four or five
in Oregon. They occur only in lava
formation, and a peculiar thing about
some of them is that they contain
more ice in the summer than they do
in the winter. 1t is evidently pro-
- . Eat to-