Little Crater Campground

Leaving Bend, we stopped in LaPine to get gas and propane, then drove up to Little Crater Campground in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. We found a wonderful site right on the shores of Paulina Lake!

Newberry Volcano is a shield volcano like the Medicine Lake Volcano where Lava Beds National Monument is located in northern California. And, although called "Newberry Crater," it is really a caldera like Crater Lake. At one time there was one large lake in the Newberry Caldera like there is at Crater Lake. However, deposits of pumice and lava divided the crater into two separate bodies of water several thousand years ago: Paulina Lake and East Lake. Paulina Lake is one of the deepest lakes in Oregon at 250 feet.

Here's what a plaque at the top of Paulina Peak has to say about Newberry Volcano: "Geologists theorize that Newberry lies at the nexus of several overlapping fault zones. This means Newberry emerged from the center of overlapping zones of weakness in the earth's crust. Magma rose to the surface using faults as conduits or pipelines. The Cascades are subduction zone volcanoes. Newberry's volcanic material comes from the same place, but Newberry is not a member of the Cascades clan. And Newberry is not a single volcano -- it's a crazy quilt pile of hundreds of smaller volcanoes that erupted in the same general area for about one million years."