Saturday to the Big Obsidian Flow

On Friday evening, I went onto RVillage (http://www.rvillage.com/) because I was wondering where friends (Dean and Lynne) that we met last year at a Thousand Trails in Washington might be. I had not noticed that I had an email telling me that I had message on RVillage, but when I went onto the tool, I saw that I a message, and it was from Dean and Lynne! It turned out that they checked in on Friday afternoon to the same campground that we are in!

I told them that we planned to be around the bus over the weekend, except that we might go to the Newberry Volcanic National Monument. They responded and recommended that we visit Paulina Lake and the Big Obsidian Flow. When I looked at the National Monument information (https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/destination/newberry-national-volcanic-monument-0 https://www.fs.fed.us/r6/webmaps/7Wonders/#), although the part that I had thought we would visit was a little north of us, I saw that the monument covered a large area, and that Paulina Lake and the Big Obsidian Flow were actually inside the caldera of Newberry Volcano. The part to the north of us included Lava Butte which was accessible by a shuttle from the visitor center. We thought that Lava Butte and its views might be similar to the visit we made to Pilot Butte in Bend on Friday, so decided to forego that and take our friends' recommendation and head to the Paulina Lake area, a little south and east.

On the way up, we stopped at a scenic overlook...

From which we could see some of the mountains we had seen from Pilot Butte on Friday...

There was a good labeled picture of what we could see!

Then we drove on further to the Big Obsidian Flow. Dwayne has a large piece of obsidian (along with other rocks he has collected, stored in the container on the farm in Virginia) - so I knew he would enjoy seeing this!

Zoomed in on the descriptions on the plaque:

Dean and Lynne had warned us not to wear sandals. I normally keep a pair of closed shoes in the car if I am wearing  sandals on any given day away from the bus, "just in case", but it was definitely a good idea to have closed toe shoes on this hike. We saw a few people in flip-flops - definitely NOT a good idea!

The ending face of the flow to the west from the path.

There were a number of folks coming down when we got to the stairs, so we waited for a little bit...

.... then we started up to the hike on the Big Obsidian Flow!

Lost Lake was to the east at the ending point of the flow. I've done some looking online and cannot find information about what causes this lake - whether scientists surmise that there was a larger lake before the volcanic flow (and thus the lake was "lost") or it gets "lost" with water evaporation through the summer. One comment about a hike called "Lost Lake Hike" said that there are sulfur fumes when you are near it. I have also seen pictures on the web where it has more water (probably earlier in the year).

We have lots of pictures of obsidian...

...they are probably better if someone is in the picture...

... so you can get an idea of the immensity of this field of obsidian and pumice.

Mount Paulina

Paulina Lake in the distance...

This was at the highest point on the trail...

... lots of people were there taking pictures of each other with views in the background, so we joined in...

... it had really nice views.

Rocks and rocks and rocks...

Another view of Mt Paulina...

... and Dwayne with Mt Paulina.

I actually did not notice that we could see mountains beyond Paulina Lake while we were there - I'm guessing they are Mt Bachelor in the center, and one of the Three Sisters to the right.

Another view of the cracked rock that was up at the top.

Zoomed in on Paulina Lake and the two mountains.

As we were leaving that topmost area, I snapped this picture to show a layered rock with a guy about to walk beyond it on the path. you can see the path to the right center of the picture. It definitely wasn't flip-flop friendly!

We didn't see any frogs - maybe we were too early in the year?

Lichen

Maybe this is Penstemon?

Trees growing on the flow.

I found this to be fascinating!

And this was pretty interesting too!

A pile of obsidian

Coming back to Lost Lake at the end of the hike.

Can you see Dwayne in this picture? He is to the left of center, just under one of the trees that is reaching up above the horizon.

And a picture Dwayne took from me after I took the picture right above.

We drove to East Lake and Paulina Lake but only drove around the parking areas as they were packed. There were lots of folks enjoying the lakes on stand-up paddleboards, paddleboats, canoes or kayaks, tubes, and other floating objects. I think that there were motorboats on the lakes as well.

We enjoyed our Obsidian hike!