Devils Postpile National Monument

Devils Postpile National Monument, in eastern California, preserves 798-acre site of a lava flow that cracked into straight, narrow columns when it cooled into a dark volcanic rock known as basalt. When it erupted, the lava flowed down the canyon of the middle fork of the San Joaquin River, stopping a few kilometers below Rainbow Falls. Then an ice-age glacier carved the toe of the flow, gouging out an 60-feet cliff of columnar basalt. The John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Kings Canyon National Park passes through the monument. A variety of woodland birds inhabit the heavily forested site.