In between checking out the Mono Lake tufas in the early afternoon and then catching them at sunset, we drove over to Panum Crater, “a perfect example of a rhyolitic plug-dome volcano”. It’s one of a series of craters that form the youngest mountain range in North America.

While we were hiking through it, it just seemed like a big pile of rocks, but from the air, its shape is really quite impressive. What stood out from the Cinder Cone we hiked in Lassen were these massive pumice boulders that were almost glazed with obsidian, like pottery. It’s hard to believe that we were standing on a spot that only a few hundred years ago was hot enough to melt rock into glass.

Panorama of Mono Lake from the rim of Panum Crater