Amboy Crater - 20080329

[simonov]

Last summer I went exploring up the Amboy Road north of Twentynine Palms and came upon the town of Amboy on Route 66 as well as Amboy Crater. The extinct volcano was quite a roadside tourist attraction when Route 66 passed within less than two miles of it, but since Interstate 40 was routed some miles to the north, it has been virtually forgotten. It was 110° when I was there, so when I started walking out to the cone from my car, I only got about a quarter mile before I decided I had better turn back before I died out there. I promised myself to come back when it was cooler.



Yesterday was a perfect day for the short hike to Amboy crater (it is only about a mile from the parking lot). It was about 82° under a cloudless sky, and the last of the desert wildflowers still in bloom. The cone itself was mottled with green.

Unfortunately, there were literally thousands of small grasshoppers all along the trail to the cone. Their movement and skittery noises as they darted out from under your feet were constant, unwelcome companions. I guess it's a plague sparked by the wet winter, but it won't last long. The grasshoppers have pretty much eaten up all the purple-flower plants near the parking lot, but the yellow-flower plants seem to be impervious to them. Perhaps they are mildly poisonous, as their leaves remained intact in the midst of clouds of insects, though withered from lack of recent water. Unfortunately, their successful defenses against the grasshoppers, and the depredation of other wildflower species, tinted the views with a rather monochromatic yellow.



The few greasewood bushes I saw out there also seemed to be impervious to the grasshoppers. I'm sure the insects will soon starve, there are so many of them, with not very much for them to eat.

The three big fat lizards I saw along the trail and inside the caldera had no complaints, however. I don't know what kind of lizards they are, but they are biggest and fattest I have ever seen, about ten inches long including tail, and positively bloated.



I am pretty sure they are getting fat off all those grasshoppers. They enjoyed sunning themselves on the rocks, and didn't seem to be frightened of me or the other hikers who were out there. They gave the impression they had seen it all before, though the one in my photo above appeared to be somewhat curious about me and my camera.

It's an easy hike into the caldera and up to the top of the cone, with rewarding views of the surrounding lava beds:



There were maybe twenty other people on the trail and the cone during the time I was there, quite a few more than during the summer, when someone would pull into the parking lot every twenty minutes or so, have a look around without leaving the air-conditioned vehicle, then drive off. Though the weather was far more amenable to hiking than it was in the summer, I was still surprised to see as many folks as I did, since Amboy is almost 200 miles from Los Angeles, and there's nothing else there for miles around.

More photos on my Flickr page.

[zippetydude]

Thanks for the post! I'd never heard of it, but it sounds like a really nice adventure for a March (or perhaps October or November) afternoon. It's now on my list of places to explore.

z

[Rick M]

Good thing you turned around last summer. Out on the black lava flows in summer heat can be deceiving as several years back a young couple that were avid runners left to do it in the summer and on the way back she could not continue and once she went down on the hot black rock that was it even with rescue less than two hours responding.

Just west on 66 is Pisgah Crater that is being mined for the cinders but has nearly 200 lava tubes for exploring in the lava flows (need helmets, knee pads, and lights for exploring most). And I really do mean helmets as many of the tubes have lavasicles hanging down from the ceiling. Some of the tubes are a tight fit and only my smallest students could crawl though them (I had a science club on weekends called the "Outsci" Science Club until we were shut down by the district when they saw two pages in the yearbook of me taking them out rock climbing).

One of the reasons there are a lot of people at Amboy now are the geocachers...there is a geocache right in the west breach to the crater. Also, the recent sign and parking lot by BLM makes it somewhat more/easy access unlike possibly getting stuck in the sand or oil pan tore out as in the past.
ps Amboy has a crater not a caldera hench "Amboy Crater"