Sunset Crater

Just a few miles North of Flagstaff, Arizona you can visit an other-wordly environment that isn't beautiful, but is certainly memorable. The Sunset Crater National Monument is an area of dormant volcanoes, including Sunset Crater itself, where you can walk around the lava flows and examine the legacy of a 1,000 year-old firestorm.

San Francisco mountains can be seen from central Flagstaff, but are also prominent on the skyline viewed from the Sunset Crater. What now appear as separate peaks were one big mountain before it blew its top in 1067.

The lava flow from the 1188 eruption extends several miles across the landscape as a jumble of granulated chunks of solidified lava. A few hardy plants have established themselves, but otherwise the scene has scarcely changed since smoke dispersed and the lava cooled.

Sunset Crater itself is off-limits to visitors because of its unstable surface. The name stems from the colour of the ash layer on the peak (right).

A layer of fine, grey ash coats the top of Lennox Crater (above left) adjacent to Sunset Crater. By contrast deposits of cinder in a variety of colours (above right) can be seen on the marked Lava Trail.

The ring of cinder (above) is a fumerole - a side vent (effectively a miniature volcano) that spewed out its own display of fire, ash and lava during the last eruption.

A Visitor Centre provides detailed information including a video show. The Normans were invading Britain when the San Francisco volcano blew its top. Europeans would not discover America until 250 years after Sunset Crater last erupted. Only the Sinagua people, perhaps in their Walnut Canyon home, would have been around to witness these dramatic demonstrations of Nature's power.