| Access road to Lava Beds National Monument. | |
Entrance to Valentine Cave, a lava tube. | |
| Stepping into the cave. |  |
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Terrain surrounding the cave. |  |
| Deeper into the cave, armed with two flashlights kindly provided by the visitor center. |  |
Long exposure, no flash. |  |
| Still deeper into the cave. It's an inhospitable and spooky place, with floors and walls that look smooth but are actually rough and sharp. The air is cold. |  |
After fifteen minutes of careful spelunking, the ceiling got too low for me to stand upright. |  |
| Heading back out. The space between the two sources of daylight is a wide pillar at the entrance. |  |
Looking back into the cave one last time. |  |
| Lots of lizards on the hike to the top of Schonchin Butte. Later I learned that "butte" is pronounced like the first syllable of "beauty". |  |
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| The camera lens is about 6 inches away from the lizard, which unfortunately is closer than the camera can focus. |  |
Strange rock formation from the fire lookout at the top of the butte, using maximum optical (3x) and digital (1.88x) magnification. |  |
| Same formation, optical-only magnification. |  |
Same formation, no magnification. It was easily visible with the naked eye, but it's hard to see in this picture. |  |
| Crater at the top of the butte. |  |
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Stairs constructed of red volcanic rock. |  |
| Opposite side of the crater from the fire lookout. |  |
The butte from the ground, with my rented Kia Sportage for scale. |  |
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| The lava beds that are the Monument's namesake. The butte near the center is probably Schonchin Butte. |  |
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| The strange rock formation I saw from the top of Schonchin Butte. |  |
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