Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a vast volcanic landscape on Idaho’s Snake River Plain, shaped by repeated basaltic eruptions along the Great Rift of Idaho. Its lava fields, cones, rift cracks, lava tubes, and tree molds make it one of the nation’s most striking volcanic regions, with geologically recent flows and some of the world’s best exposed rift cracks. People crossed and used this terrain for thousands of years, from Paleo-Indians and Northern Shoshone to emigrants on Goodale’s Cutoff. Scientific study, public interest, and federal action led to protection in 1924, later expansion, wilderness designation, and even Apollo-era astronaut geology training.