Inferno Cone

Inferno Cone is one of the youngest features of the Craters of the Moon lava field, a cinder cone erupted along the Great Rift zone where the basin-and-range rifting pulls the Snake River Plain apart; the cone’s black cinders and its 360-degree summit view made it the monument’s standard viewpoint from the earliest road-building era of the 1920s–30s. The park road loops past its base and the short climb — a half mile round trip — has been the classic stop since the road opened; from the top, the Great Rift’s line of vents and cones runs south toward Wapi Park, visible as the plain’s black spine. The cone is one of the youngest features of the monument’s northern field, erupted along the Great Rift where the basin-and-range rifting pulls the plain apart, and the loop road built in the 1920s–30s routed past its base; the short climb has been the monument’s standard viewpoint stop since the road opened, with the rift’s line of cones visible running south.