Qualla: Belknap Crater https://qualla.com/belknap-crater en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:03 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/r/c/7/belknap-crater-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Belknap Crater https://qualla.com/belknap-crater Belknap Crater: Introduction https://qualla.com/belknap-crater/ Photo credit Greg Willis from Denver, CO, usa, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Dee Wright Observatory sits atop McKenzie Pass, built from lava blocks quarried from this very volcano. Through its stone windows, visitors gaze across one of the most striking volcanic landscapes in North America: Belknap Crater's black, treeless lava fields spreading in every direction, a stark interruption in Oregon's green Cascades. This is the youngest shield volcano in the entire Cascade Range, its barren flows so fresh in geological terms that forests have barely begun to reclaim them. Belknap last erupted around 480 CE, roughly the time the Roman Empire was falling, and the evidence of that violence remains written across the landscape in basalt.

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Image: Greg Willis from Denver, CO, usa | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/r/c/7/belknap-crater-wp/9rc7-belknap-crater-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Belknap Crater: Fire in the Sisters Reach https://qualla.com/belknap-crater/ Photo credit Johannes Menzel, CC BY 3.0. Belknap sits within a volcanic cluster geologists call the Sisters Reach, a zone of intense Holocene activity stretching from Mount Bachelor north to Three Fingered Jack. At least 466 Quaternary volcanoes crowd this region, with 125 centers becoming active between 4,000 and 1,300...

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Image: Johannes Menzel | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/r/c/7/belknap-crater-wp/9rc7-belknap-crater-fire-in-the-sisters-reach.mp3 0:06 2 full Belknap Crater: Lava Curls and Tree Molds https://qualla.com/belknap-crater/ Photo credit Johannes Menzel, CC BY 3.0. The lava fields preserve remarkable volcanic features. Along the Skyline Trail, flows from Little Belknap peeled back as they cooled, creating overturned slabs of hardened rock that geologist Taylor called 'lava curls.' Dozens of tree molds dot the western flows, cylindrical void...

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Image: Johannes Menzel | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/r/c/7/belknap-crater-wp/9rc7-belknap-crater-lava-curls-and-tree-molds.mp3 0:06 3 full Belknap Crater: Rivers of Stone https://qualla.com/belknap-crater/ Photo credit Johannes Menzel, CC BY 3.0. Belknap's eruptions dramatically reshaped the McKenzie River drainage. Final-phase lava flows extended miles to the west, entering McKenzie Canyon and creating the upstream swamp known as Beaver Marsh. The river now disappears into permeable sediment and talus formed by these anc...

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Image: Johannes Menzel | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/r/c/7/belknap-crater-wp/9rc7-belknap-crater-rivers-of-stone.mp3 0:06 4 full Belknap Crater: A Landscape in Waiting https://qualla.com/belknap-crater/ Photo credit Johannes Menzel, CC BY 3.0. The USGS considers Belknap's threat potential 'Low/Very Low,' but the region remains volcanically restless. Postglacial mafic eruptions occur more frequently in the Sisters Reach than anywhere else in the Cascade arc. The McKenzie and Santiam Pass area saw more than a dozen disti...

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Image: Johannes Menzel | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/r/c/7/belknap-crater-wp/9rc7-belknap-crater-a-landscape-in-waiting.mp3 0:06 5 full Belknap Crater: Trails Through Time https://qualla.com/belknap-crater/ Photo credit Johannes Menzel, CC BY 3.0. Native Americans traveled paths along Belknap's lava fields long before European settlement, harvesting huckleberries in the surrounding forests. The Oregon Skyline Trail still follows some of these ancient routes west of the lava flows. In the early 1870s, J.H. Belknap invested ...

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Image: Johannes Menzel | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/r/c/7/belknap-crater-wp/9rc7-belknap-crater-trails-through-time.mp3 0:06 6 full