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Flagstaff's History & Volcanic Past
Flagstaff's History & Volcanic Past
Piper Robb
Flagstaff's volcanic past is not only a history lesson, but a part of Flagstaff that you can still explore today. There are so many geological sites around Flagstaff including: the lava river cave, Sunset Crater Volcano and Wutpaki National Monument
The lava river is about 700,000 years old, and it formed when a lava flow cooled on the outside while the inside of the hardness continued to flow inside of it. It is a mile long tube, the largest in Arizona. If you go and visit the cave, it stays around 35-45 degrees all year long. The cave is located in the Coconino National Forest and is almost always accessible unless the roads are shut down in the winter time. The floor of the cave is hard and rocky made of cooled lava.
Sunset Crater Volcano, is estimated to have erupted around 1085 CE, and the eruption column was around 65,000 feet. When the eruption happened, it forced indigenous people to move away and when they came back, they had to adjust to all of the new surroundings of ash in the air and unlivable conditions. Sunset Crater Volcano was established as a national monument in 1930. You can hike a trail near it on the Aha Trail and the trail is Solidified Bonito Lava Flow. The park is also known as a “dark sky park” which means it is a good place for stargazing as well.
Wutpaki National Monument, is about 32 miles north of Flagstaff and connects to the sunset crater national monument. Many indigenous people maintain a spiritual connection to this monument, and it was inhabited by Native American tribes over centuries and is a sacred place for tribes like the Hopi, Navajo and others. The monument is home to a lot of wildlife in various forms like plants, birds, mammals and reptiles.
In conclusion, there is a lot of history when it comes to Flagstaff along with all of the nature around it. There are also tons of volcanic things that I didn’t know about before writing this article, so I hope you learned something you didn’t know before whilst reading this article.