Lava Beds National Monument

Lava Beds National Monument is a place where you can smell the sage and juniper, listen to birds, and hike miles of lava flows or developed trails. Volcanic eruptions on the Medicine Lake shield volcano have created an incredibly rugged landscape punctuated by cinder cones, lava flows, spatter cones, lava tube caves and pit craters. Explore caves created by the sudden cooling of lava flows, or visit the site of the only Indian war in California at the historic Captain Jack’s Stronghold. The Stronghold, a natural lava fortress, is where a small band of 53 warriors and their families led by Captain Jack held off a force 20 times its size for five months. Just south of the Lava Beds is Medicine Lake ’s volcano, one of the largest shield volcanoes in the world. In actual mass, this volcano is larger than Mt. Shasta . Millions of eruptions over half a million years were gentle rather than explosive, covering more than 750 square miles of landscape with lava. A visit Glass Mountain offers fields of obsidian shining in the sun like black diamonds. At the crest of the mountain, Medicine Lake is a great place for camping, swimming and fishing.

To learn more about Lava Beds please visit our website: www.nps.gov/labe