Sunset Crater Volcano, Arizona

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Arizona, is situated in the north-central section of the state. It is actually part of a major field of previous volcanic activity, and has met its fair share of controversy over the years. However, the crater is a curiosity piece for most visitors, who enjoy a chance to sit or stand close to one of Mother Nature's most destructive works of art.

When it comes to natural destruction a volcano is high on most people's list. Most would never dare venture close to one or even contemplate hiking around or across one. However, Arizona's extinct Sunset Crater Volcano Monument is well-loved and respected by locals and visitors, who will stop at nothing to come close to such a monster, hoping upon hope that it will remain as it is.

The crater is located just outside Flagstaff, a huge cinder cone within the park. It is known to be the youngest of the San Francisco Volcanic Field volcanoes, closely related as it happens to the nearby peaks, known by the same name. It is thought to be extinct, standing once at over three hundred meters high, but it has erupted not so long ago – once in 1064, and recently in the late thirteenth century. It was the final eruption that blew everything sky high, coating the cone's blackness with a top side sugar coating of orange and red lava rocks. In fact, it is these unusually colored rocks from which its name was finally chosen. Since then it has become a lush plant paradise filled with wildflowers, pine trees and other vegetation. The crater was also dubbed as Beardtongue.

Hiking to the crater and cone takes visitors along a looping almost two mile trail to the crater's base. However, since the mid-seventies, the remaining section of the trail was closed due to terrible damage done by visitors, whose footsteps alone had eroded the summit and crater dramatically.

Despite this, the trail leads across the hardened and blackened lava flow (Bonita). It is still as new looking as it was when it hardened, crashing onto forested lands, destroying everything in its path. In fact, it developed a lava tube that is being venomously preserved due to a recent collapse, and can only be viewed from a distance now.