Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes Road

This is not your typical day hike — it's a 23-mile one-way journey through some of the most surreal volcanic landscape in North America. The route begins in dense boreal forest, the kind of dark spruce corridor that makes you feel like Alaska is swallowing you whole. You'll ford three streams along the way, each one a cold reminder of where you are. As the forest thins, the landscape transforms dramatically into the ash-covered moonscape of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes — the site of the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The valley floor, still buried under hundreds of feet of volcanic ash a century later, stretches out like another planet. Fumaroles once dotted this expanse by the thousands, giving the valley its name. This trail rewards patient hikers who want to witness geology on a scale that makes the Grand Canyon feel cozy.