Panum Volcano Crater

Since I am ahead of schedule, last night I decided to turn my alarm off and sleep in as I was not going to leave this spot on the side of the road until after my afternoon workload is complete. So I got going around 9am with coffee, breakfast, and a sponge-bath before getting started on some house-cleaning and updating the site.

Once my work was completed, I drove a few miles west to find the road leading to Panum Crater in the Inyo National Forest. Panum Crater is the site of a volcano that stopped erupting only 600 years ago (very young in volcano terms). I was told I could hike right up on the rim and look down into the dome in the center, which I did. The crater and the surrounding area is covered in pumice and obsidian making the sand appear to be half black-glass.

 

Looking West towards the Sierra’s, where I just came from yesterday