Jaspers Crater and Owyhee River via Birch Creek OHV Route

Not only is the crater a spectular view but the lava flows across the desert is a sight to behold also. All around the edge you can see major cracks and down in the crater you can see where big chunks of lava has broken off the lip and fallen down into the crater. Beware where you walk. One thinks of rocks as being strong and stable, but this is a very fragile area and caution is needed. There are hollow tubes 2' plus diameter and over 10' long that could collapse by just walking on them. Jordan Craters volcanic field consists of well-preserved basaltic lava flows and scoria cones that are the youngest and northernmost of a group of three Quaternary lava fields covering an area of 250 sq km in SE Oregon. The Pleistocene 1473-m-high Clarks Butte shield volcano and Rocky Butte (Lava Butte) lava fields lie to the south, along the trend of regional Basin and Range faulting. Jordan Craters lie on the Owyhee-Oregon plateau at the SE end of a series of widely scattered young volcanic fields extending SE from Bend, Oregon. Coffeepot Crater at the NW end of the lava field was the source about 3200 years ago of one of Oregon's youngest lava flows, which covered 75 sq km with 1.6 cu km of olivine-basaltic pahoehoe. The flows dammed local drainages, forming the two small Upper and Lower Cow Lakes at the SE end of the lava field. Jordan Craters is renowned for its excellent exposures of a wide variety of youthful lava-flow features and has similarities to Holocene basaltic flows of Idaho's Snake River Plain to the east.