About this place
The Great Rift is one of only two such features in the world. It is desert walking.
It covers 635 square miles, and it is reckoned the largest, deepest and most recent volcanic rift system in the continental United States.
A fissure 65 miles long opened here about 15,000 years ago and poured out one lava flow after another.
What is left is spatter caves, ice tubes, caves and cinder cones. They run across the 380,000 acres of the Craters of the Moon and Wapi lava flows.
Sage grouse, mourning doves, mule deer and antelope all live here.
There is the scale-like Blue Dragon lava flow to look at. There is the sharp, broken a’a lava of the Bear Park Kipuka to walk. There are lava tube caves that people lived in as early as 1200 A.D.
The facts
- Cost
- Camping fee not confirmed
- Type
- Specific campsite
- Managed by
- Bureau of Land Management
Getting there
From Interstate 86 northeast of American Falls, take exit 40 and head northeast on ID 39, past the American Falls Dam. After the dam, turn left onto Center Pleasant Valley Road, also numbered 2600 S. Drive about 7 miles east to Lava Bed Road. Turn right and drive north about 6 miles to Crystal Ice Cave Road. Another 6 miles of dirt road brings you into the Great Rift country, at a spot called The Frying Pan.
Coordinates 43.00578, -113.25943
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What is near here
There is another spot of ours within reach, and some better-known places further out.
- China Cup Butte ISA Wilderness Study Area Directions
- Big Southern Butte Directions
- Massacre Rocks State Park Directions
Every distance on this page is the driving distance. A short distance can still take a long time. The road may be closed for the season, covered in snow, or washed out. Many of these roads are dirt. Plan your route before you leave home. Out here there is often no phone signal to look it up on the way.
Nearest town and supplies
- Minidoka, ID Directions
- Aberdeen, ID Directions
Aberdeen is big enough that you’d normally expect fuel and somewhere to buy food. Nobody from here has been to check, so don’t count on it if you’re running low.
Have you been here?
Fees and access change, and the records do not always keep up. If you have been, tell us what you found.
Thank you, that is recorded. It helps the next person.
Add road notes for this site
The thing we cannot get from any government record is what the drive in is actually like. If you have done it, this is the most useful thing you can leave behind. We read everything before it appears, and we print a first name with it if you give one.
Thank you. A person will read it before it goes on the page.
Where this information comes from
The description on this page is ours. The facts in it, and the fee and facility details below it, come from the Bureau of Land Management’s own records, read in August 2026.