LAVA BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT — Visitors services will be reduced at the Lava Beds National Monument starting Sunday, Oct. 15, when the park transitions to its winter hours.

Marc Blackburn, Lava Beds’ manager of visitor services, said the visitor center will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through the spring. It will be closed Christmas Day but open on other major holidays, including Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. If the park receives snow, access could be limited. Snow did fall at the park Wednesday.

Blackburn said summer at Lava Beds was busy.

“The number of people we talked to slightly surpassed our 2019 numbers, the last year before the pandemic, around 63,000 people. We had enough staff to lead cave tours on weekends and those were a success. It is our hope that we can continue those trends in the coming years. We will see.”

Lava Beds commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Modoc War in late 2022 and earlier this year with a series of events and programs. Blackburn said one of the results of the Modoc War programs is the pending realignment of the Captain Jack’s Stronghold Trail.

“Where you enter the trail now will be the last stop rather than the first, and where you traditionally exit the trail will be where you enter,” he said. “By reversing the order, you enter the Stronghold roughly the way the Modocs would have and you get a better idea of the flow of the story. This realignment will be accompanied by a new trail guide. It is our hope that these changes will occur before the 2024 visitor season begins. We know that the waysides at many Modoc War locations need wholesale changes. We need to wait for funding to change those.”

In other matters, Blackburn said phase one of the park road rehabilitation project — repairing and paving the north-south road from the north entrance station to the park’s southern boundary — was completed just before Labor Day. The next section of road improvement, from the entrance station to the east boundary, will be phase two, but there is currently no timetable for that work.

The onset of winter also means some caves will be seasonally closed to protect bats.

“With winter coming, the bats are getting ready to sleep the winter away,” Blackburn said. “To accommodate the hibernaculums, the following lava tubes are closed for the winter: Juniper-Hercules Leg, and Sentinel.” More closures will be announced, “so please stay tuned. We’re just waiting to see what the bats do.”

Fall and winter mean cooler temperatures, making it “a perfect time to hike.” Blackburn suggests visitors consider walking the Lyons Trail, which at 8.2 miles is the longest trail in the park. “With the cooler temperatures and the shorter days, it is a good walk before we get heavy snow — assuming we will get snow this year.”

Other popular trails include the Thomas-Wright Battlefield, Fleener Chimneys, Schonchin Butte, Three Sisters and Gillem Bluff.

For updated information, visit the park website at www.nps.gov/labe or call 530-667-8113.