Geography 368: Field Seminar
Day 3 | Bend Tourism & Newberry National Volcanic Park
Visit Bend
Photo by Ezra Zeitler
Right after a quick coffee stop at Thump Coffee in Bend, OR the class started the day at Visit Bend Visitor Center to talk with Valerie Warren. Valerie is the Vice President of Operations and Policy at Visit Bend. Visit Bend is a private nonprofit that works with the city of Bend to market the city. About 96% of Visit Bend’s budget is derived from the Oregon Hotel Tax which is set at 10.4%. Oregon has strict laws on how this money can be spent. As of 2003, Visit Bend gets 30% of the hotel tax and that adds up to about $3 million a year. Most of the budget is spent marketing the city during the “off season” of October-April to their main markets (Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; San Francisco, CA/Northern California). The off-season tourism Visit Bend is trying to promote is cultural tourism which lead to the birth of the Bend Ale Trail. The microbrewery tour is self-guided and now includes 18 different stops along the way.
While at Visit Bend, the class discussed with Valerie what her team they expect from a content analysis of the Visit Bend Instagram account. Visit Bend’s Instagram can be found here and the content analysis here. The content analysis the class is putting together will provide feedback to Visit Bend about what they are featuring on their page.
Lunch at Lava Lands
We arrive at Newberry National Volcanic Monument for a picnic lunch prior to our 12:30pm meeting with our personal geologic guide for the afternoon, Steve Goldberg.
Photo by Ezra Zeitler
Stay on the Trails to Protect the Habitat
Dr. Goldberg gave the geologic and volcanological history of the site. Newberry volcano is the largest volcano in the Cascades. It is a shield volcano with basalt to rhyolite composition. It last erupted about 1,300 years ago, with the largest explosive eruption and collapse around 75,000 years ago.
Photo by Ezra Zeitler
I Like Lava Buttes and I Cannot Lie
From the highway, you can see the Lava Butte crater rise above the landscape. Enormous lava flow deposits cover a significant portion of the park. Lava Butte is a cinder cone in a system with other small cinder cones in the northwest of the Newberry Volcano. The Butte is topped off with a 60-foot-deep crater within its upper rim. Scientists say that Lava Butte only experienced a single eruption around 7,000 years ago. A fissure from the Newberry shield volcano provided Lava Butte with the magma that it had extruded. The flow reaches the Deschutes River, creating a lake by cutting a portion of the river off with its contents.
Photo by Kayla Moothart
Lava Balls
Steve showed us through the various pathways and explained different geologic phenomena to us. One of his favorite features that he described to us were the cinnamon roll-like lava balls, or snowballs. These masses were formed when a chunk of molten rock breaks off the side of the molten river channel, all while rolling over the flowing lava, and accumulating more molten material until it creates a solidified lava mass as shown in the picture.
Photo by Krista Emery
This display shows the topology of the Newberry Volcanic Lava Lands Monument and the extents of various lava flows along the fissure leading to the larger Newberry caldera. For more information, visit the Newberry Volcano Wikipedia page, or the USGS page on the volcano.
Photo by Krista Emery
The Entrance to the Lava Caves
After a short drive from the Lava Lands Visitor Center, we visited the Lava River Cave, an inactive lava tube through which a river of magma flowed. It is a mile-long expedition down into the depths of the tube. Prior to entering the cave, it is necessary to check your clothing if you’ve been in a cave or mine with the same ensemble before. This is to prevent the spread of the highly contagious and highly fatal white-nosed syndrome in bats.
Photo by Haley Churchill
Light at the End of the Tunnel
We headed down with a sense of adventure, close-toed shoes, and lamp in hand. As demonstrated by Haley and Kayla.
Photo by Haley Churchill
Life in the Abyss
The cave remains around 42 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, so jackets and hats came in handy. Despite the complete lack of light, there was a log at end of the tunnel with little white mushrooms growing out of it in the pitch black darkness about a mile into the tube.
Photo by Adria Slade