Spent yesterday evening and this morning (7th Aug 2008) at Newberry crater. Got some real interesting stuff here, its related to the cascades, but, even though its bigger than most of them, it isn't one of them. Turns out the magma comes up here through many little fissures rather than the cascades which are larger conduits. This means there is better thermal and chemical contact between the basaltic lava and crustal plate. This results in firstly a different morphology to the crater and secondly a different chemical composition. This includes some of the largest obsidian flows (volcanic glass) in the world. You can drive up to the spectacular Paulina peak which gives you a fantastic panorama of both the caldera and the Cascades (which more or less run North to South).
I spent the dawn up there while several thunderstorms rolled over. Impressive, if pragmatically awkward for doing the timelapse.

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