The Painted Dunes are location
in the northeast corner of the park, next to Butte Lake. This area used to have
a lot of volcanic activity, and is located 6,100 feet above sea level. It consists
of a large lava plateau that's covered with pulverized cinder rock.
Just south of Butte Lake is the Fantastic Lava Beds, which was part of a lava
flow that came from the nearby volcano called Cinder Cone. It covers a very large
area and stands around 30 feet high. There's geological evidence to support that
the lake existed before the lava flow.
The best way to view the painted dunes is by climbing the steep trail up Cinder
Cone. It's a 30 degree grade, so we walked for a couple of minutes, stopped, and
repeated this until we reached the top. Although the climb is only 800 feet, it
seemed to take forever. Once we arrived at the top, we got a very nice view of
the park.
Click on the preview picture below to view the full picture.
These are pictures giving a view of Butte Lake and the lava beds
These are from the top of Cinder Cone. For such a small volcano, it had a very
large crater.
These are pictures of the dunes taken from the top of Cinder Cone. You can also
see more of the lava beds which surround the dunes.
These are close up pictures of the dunes. You can see that it's not sand, but
simply cinder lava that's been arranged about with rocks of different colors,
giving the unique apparence. The colors are formed by oxidation of the cinder
rocks and ash that fell from volcanic eruptions.
