We stumbled across this place as we were driving towards Portland and I must it was an interesting find. This is not the new berry volcano, the volcano itself is around 30 miles from this place. This is a cinder cone, think of it as one to many mini volcanos that blew up due to the lava pressure around the new berry volcano and created a butte on top. Now there are 3 things 2 can do here:
1- The most interesting is I guess the lava tunnels, under the mountain ranges long tunnels were formed by flowing lava. Lava tunnels are not exactly in this spot. They are across the highway on the other side and need advance reservation as they get filled pretty quickly. Look for lava tunnels on google in the area and you can get to the website and reserve. We could not as we just decided to cover this attraction on our way to our destination.
2- The easy hike around the cinder cone with lava rocks all around. This was super cool for me as I had not seen anything like that. You can also see the Cascade mountain range from here on a clear day, broken mountain, twin sisters, etc..
3- A bus ride, hike or a bike ride to the top of the cinder cone or lava butte. It’s a $3 bus round trip per person and has to be paid in cash, don’t ask me why. 5 minute ride to top, you can see views from the top and talk to the ranger. The guy we spoke with was awesome and gave us a lowdown on the area which was pretty cool.
The gift shop was good. Overall a good place to spend a couple of hours.