I had never been able to convince anyone to do the whole of Ape Cave with me, but finally my son indicated an interest and we went up there on this weekend. We got there early and so managed to avoid the crowds in the Lower Cave. Disclaimer: A certain human appears in most of the photos for two reasons (a) I have been informed that a Facebook posting of an event requires at least 50 photos of self, and (b) For many pictures, I needed Jake to hold up the lantern so the camera could focus on something.
We each had headlamps, but I also rented, for $5, a Coleman lantern at the Ape’s Headquarters. This was better than bringing our own because theirs have a wire mesh protecting the mantles, while ours has glass (One tap on sharp lava and it’s smashed). We also wore layers (42° in the cave and 85° without) and fingerless leather bicycle gloves.
The Lower Cave was relatively unpopulated early in the day. The tread here is easy and the lava tube spacious at first and then narrowing at the lava boulder known as the “Meatball.” Jake insisted that we explore every nook and cranny, so we wriggled down the final yards of the Lower Cave on our bellies until we got to the spot where only the Green Slime could ooze through. This is the point where lahar from a St. Helens eruption about 450 years ago plugged the 2,000-year-old lava tube.
We then continued through to the Upper Cave. Here there are a number of “breakdowns”, or ceiling collapses of jagged lava that need to be clambered over. There are also at least three lava “falls,” one of which is eight feet high and needs to be climbed. A 90-foot wide “room” at the lower end of the Upper Cave is the most spacious area in the tube. We crawled into a couple of side passages and posed under the “skylight.”
Beyond the second skylight, which is the upper exit of the cave, the cave floor is paved with a solidified lava flow. There’s one more big breakdown to negotiate and then the end: unfortunately this has become a canvas for vandal scratchings.
We searched assiduously for cave life and found a couple of creatures: a tiny grylloblattid, a kind of insect that lives in caves and at the tops of mountains, and a flurry of fungus gnats, whose larvae feed on the white fungus seen coating the upper walls of the tube.
By the time we got to it, the Upper Cave was more crowded than the Lower Cave (Both parking lots filled up). An interesting cross-section of humanity was exploring, much more diverse than noted on the regular old hiking trail. Small children should stay out of the Upper Cave, but there were some parents struggling along with their tots on the jagged lava. Dogs are not permitted, yet we noted one Boston terrier. Food is also forbidden, but energy bar wrappers and discarded water bottles appeared at regular intervals.
It was a dirty, exquisitely clawing, squirming, and scrambling time. About five miles total, the underground section taking four hours.
Note: Signs at Ape’s Headquarters say this is the longest lava tube in the Western Hemisphere. I checked and that is a little bit off:
The longest lava tube in the Western Hemisphere is the Ferrocarril-Mina Inferior in Mexico at 3.85 miles.
The longest lava tube in the world is the Kazumura Cave in Hawaii at 40.7 miles (Sixteen of the world’s 30 longest lava tubes are in Hawaii).
The longest lava tube in the continental U.S. is the Deadhorse Cave, home of the “Masochist Maze”, near Mt. Adams, Washington at 2.74 miles.
At 2.5 miles, Ape Cave ranks 30th in the world, 19th in the U.S., 5th in the Western Hemisphere, and 3rd in the continental U.S.
That was not there two years ago when I last came through with my son.
My girlfriend and I were up there earlier this year and I dont remember it being there, but maybe we missed it.
