Future activity is possible, though the Volcano Hazards Program directed by the United States Geological Survey considers Indian Heaven's volcanic threat level to be low.

The local area has been inhabited by Native American populations for about 10,000 years, and the name Indian Heaven derives from the indigenous name for the vicinity.

[5] Formed towards the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, these mountains are underlain by more ancient volcanoes that subsided due to parallel north–south faulting in the surrounding region.

[13] Amphibians such as frogs can be found in the wilderness,[15] while terrestrial animals in the area include deer, elk, and American black bears.

From 1902 to the mid-1920s, local tribes including the Yakama, Klickitat, Wasco-Wishram, and Umatilla, as well as Native American groups from Montana and Wyoming gathered in the Indian Heaven area during the summers for annual huckleberry feasts.

During these gatherings, they celebrated, traded, and performed rituals; they also raced horses, played various games, constructed baskets, dried meat, tanned hides, and fished in the local lakes.

In 1932, the Yakama Nation and the United States Forest Service agreed to set aside a portion of the Berry Fields for exclusive Indian use; the harvest remains an important local tradition.

Strata of rock underlying the area has been deformed to create faults, fractures (separations in geologic formation), volcanic igneous intrusions, and a gradual, dipping syncline that trends north to south.

[1] With a total magma output of 60 cubic miles (250 km3), the field has about 50 mafic eruptive edifices (rich in magnesium and iron),[24][a] whose activity lasted from the Pleistocene to the early Holocene.

[25] Roughly half of these vents mark a mountainous highland, 19 miles (31 km) in length, which runs parallel to the north–south trend of the Cascade Arc in southern Washington state.

Unlike Mount St. Helens, the Indian Heaven field has generated large volumes of basalt but has not caused extensive crustal melting.

[1] Another, more ancient lava flow that was especially fluid encompassed the Trout Lake area and extended several miles south, also nearing the Columbia River.

[1] The eruptive units from the field show normal residual magnetism,[28] suggesting that they were all formed less than 780,000 years ago, with the exception of lava within Gifford Peak's eroded core.

The field also has tuyas, such as Lone Buttle, which formed as flat and steep volcanic cones created by lava that erupted through glaciers or ice sheets.

Lone Butte in particular erupted through a glacier in the Indian Heaven field, building its upper cone above water and generating pyroclastic materials, lava flows, and tephra to reach a height of 3,300 feet (1,000 m) above its base.

[25] Nonetheless, the Volcano Hazards Program directed by the United States Geological Survey lists Indian Heaven's volcanic threat level as "Low/Very Low".

"[30] Estimating the probability of lava flows from Indian Heaven covering a certain point in the zone surrounding the field, the geologists arrived at a range between one in 100,000 to one in a million.

[1] Within the Indian Heaven Wilderness, visitors can fish in lakes and ponds, hike, backpack, ride horses, and view wildlife.

[13] After the climb from the final paved road to enter the wilderness area, which lasts about 2 miles (3.2 km), hiking in Indian Heaven is relatively undemanding.