Newberry Caldera

After leaving Lassen National Park, we headed to Newberry National Volcanic Monument in Eastern Oregon to visit my Mom and Stepdad, Britt, who work as volunteer park rangers there in the Summer. This was our second time visiting Newberry and there still so much new stuff we got to see and still things that we didn’t have time to get to. It’s truly a park packed with awesome geological features to see.

As volunteer park rangers, my Mom and Britt know alot about Newberry and they both shared so much knowledge about the park with us. We got to go on a guided/interpretive hike with Britt who gave a great overview of the geological timeline of the volcanic activity in Newberry. The caldera once had a peak with a massive chamber of lava underneath it. At some point around 500,000 years ago volcanic activity, maybe and eruption, caused the magma chamber to empty and collapse. The result left a caldera which then was filled from rain water to form two lakes; Lake Paulina and East Lake. Thats skipping over lots of smaller volcanic events which you can see existing evidence of in the park. There are cinder cones, pumice fields, and obsidian flows scattered throughout that have been formed all within the past 500,000 years and many being formed much more recently. Newberry is considered to still be active and indeed there is ongoing thermal activity in the form of hotsprings on the shores of both lakes. While we were there we got to hike out to many of these cool places; including Paulina Lake, a multi acre field of pumice rock, a beach of white pumice stones, and our favorite, the B.O.F. (Big Obsidian Flow).

While on our hikes we also got to see a lot of awesome wildlife in Newberry! The park is home to many chipmunks, nighthawks, Clark’s nutcrackers, deer and more. Suprisingly some animals, including the Pika and tree frogs, have even found homes in the rocky and seemingly unhospitable obsidian flows. We really wanted to see a Pika (because they look so adorable!) and spent some time looking and walking slowly around the BOF, but we couldn’t find any. Margo saw a tree frog that was hiding in the BOF, but by the time I turned to look at it it had jumped away into the pile of obsidian rocks.

One fun memory I’d like to share was when we hiked out to a beach on East Lake. We stopped at the beach for lunch and a swim after crossing a thin isthmus on a “secret menu” trail midway on a ten mile hike around Paulina. The beach was pristine! With no easy trail to get to it the only few other people there had arrived via boat; we shared the whole beach with just one other family. We first took our hiking boots off and had our lunch of macaroni with chili. Then we walked out into the lake for a quick swim. As we waded into the lake, bubbles started to rise from the lake floor with each step. A moment later it started to smell like eggs and we both crinkled our noses. We then noticed that the floor of the lake was actually quite warm compared to the water and realized it must be sulfur and warm water coming through from some kind of hotspring! As I walked around a bit more my foot sunk through the sand and a bunch of bubbles rushed out of the ground with a strong sulfur smell. After that I thought I would enjoy the lake by just swimming and avoid stirring up any more sulfur, but it was definitely a surprising experience!

We also still didn’t have time for a few cool things that we will have to come back for. There are several mile long lavatubes (pyroducts) that you can hike through as well as a hike to the top of a cinder cone thats covered in pumice rocks. Who knows, we just might be back in a year or two for a third visit.

There’s so many cool facts about Newberry I missed, here are some good ones:

• Newberry originally became a National Monument to thwart an attempt to build a geothermal powerplant right in the center of the caldera.
• Underneath the topsoil, there is a six foot layer of ash in Newberry that came from the eruption that formed crater lake ~7,000 years ago.
• There’s evidence that Native Americans had been living in the caldera up to 10,000 years ago.
• The most recent lava flow happened just ~1,000 years ago, and geologists predict Newberry is overdue for another similar volcanic event! Such an volcanic event poses a high risk to the neighboring cities of La Pine and Bend.

Heres thanks to my Mom and Britt for their volunteer work sharing and protecting the rich and earthy history of Newberry with everyone. It’s an amazing place and I recommend everyone to visit. And if you do, make sure you give a friendly hello to a park ranger, they just might share with you some epic volcano wisdom.

Big BOF on three! 1, 2, 3! BOF!