Sunset Crater

Just north of Flagstaff we visited Sunset Crater National Monument. It is a volcano that erupted just 1000 years ago. The lava is still so fresh and needle sharp that it looks like it should still be hot! We walked several short hikes through the formations. The camera didn't want to register all this black, but picture all the rocks as black, black, black.

It's called Sunset Crater because the lava at the top oxidized to red. It's subtle in this photo, but in some lights it really glows at the top.

Sunset Crater is the most recent of a series of volcanoes north and east of Flagstaff. They are called the San Francisco Peaks, and include the highest point in Arizona. We were seeing them in the distance yesterday from NM, and saw the other side in the distance from the Grand Canyon.

San Francisco Peaks