Pushed myself through some parts which required "Sucking it in"...
Came back a confusing and different route, worried it would dead end... Wow. Was super cool, We both have Bruised and Red Elbows and shins... We found a guy in the caves who was lost and retreating
We helped get him pointed in proper direction. Some Pictures showing some of the tight spots should be forthcoming soon.UPDATE: Here are some photos taken inside the catacombs.
Formations on the wall. Very smooth feeling. We kept joking that it looks like melted chocolate.
This was basically on the ceiling. It's a spot where it fell off and into the lava, so it's all rough instead of being smooth like other parts.
Me crawling through one of the worst parts of the catacombs. This brought us back to where we had left our backpack before crawling through another skinny, angled part to get to the section we took back.
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We had so much fun today! We explored a number of caves. We bought a small book that talks about each cave and has a map of each. That definitely came in handy on one of the caves. We both got pretty worn out faster than expected what with the crouching and sometimes even crawling. The visitor center let us borrow knee pads which were a huge help in the 'harder' caves. The caves are so neat! The walls, floor and ceiling show tons of evidence of the lava flow. Tomorrow we hope to finish the caves on the cave loop, then we'll start adventuring away from the loop.
Here are some random pics. I finally got the photos off of the smaller HP camera. For some reason the panoramic didn't show up. . . So that's sad. Oh well.
-Miranda
Me on the fire watch tower over Crater Lake. Our RV is parked down on the road below in the photo.
The ceiling/upper wall on part of one cave. They said this happened when the heat from the lava remelted some of the surrounding hardened rock.
Me sitting in a super neat area of the Juniper Cave. The white is mineral deposits. There were a lot of lower ceilings in this cave. Hence the knee pads being on. Also, we wore our bike helmets in all of the caves.
;)
The same area of the cave, but the part we were heading towards. Give you an idea of what we saw.
Click the photo to see a larger photo.
Just had to get a photo of Lucy in here with her new collar on.
She got up and meowed at me right after I clicked this pic. Probably wondering what I was doing.[ 2 comments ] ( 10 views )
Wow. Well, after a slow start this morning, We entered The Lava Beds National Monument through the Tule Lake Wildlife Refuge. So Miranda got a chance to see a ton of birdies.. A PrarieHawk flew along side our driver window at about 25 feet away for a bit, that was intense ;)
From there we hiked the Captain Jack Stronghold trail. Pretty interesting location where 60 native men,women and children held off 600 American Troops in the late 1800's By using the terrain and caves in the area.
After finding a campsite, We had dinner, and then Went out in the dark for a walk to the nearest caves quick. We went down the Fully-Lit easiest cave first, it was awesome.. I want to go back to take video
We'll see.After that we went down the Labyrinth Cave. Wow. super cool. Felt like 3-4 city blocks worth of walking, croutching under some parts, scrambling over another smooth part. So crazy in there with the lava flows still in tact in some places.. Wow. Tomorrow we plan on hitting all of the easy and most medium caves in the Main part of park
-Joe
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I was looking at a Brochure for the lavabeds (Hundreds of Caves!) And read this one:
Catacombs Cave (6,903 ft/2,104 m)
This very long cave is easily entered but gradually
increases in difficulty. It is possible to walk upright for
approximately 800 ft (244 m) to the stairway, after
which the ceiling rarely exceeds 3 ft (0.9 m). A few
places exist where the ceiling height is less then 12 in
(30 cm). A cave map is highly recommended for any
group planning to explore the entire length, as multiple
levels and numerous side passages can be confusing.
This cave is not recommended for inexperienced
cavers.
Lava Beds Website
Nice
One mile long cave, with some parts you have to crawl through!!Yeeehaaawwww!!! We'll be heading there Sunday or Monday
-Joe
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So yesterday we decided to bike down the road and see where it goes. Well, it was all downhill (not a good sign for coming back) but other than that it is a very pretty road. There was a trail head that goes into a preserve that's about a mile long. We kept going to the end of the road though. There was another trail head there that was a 2.7 mile hike with the first 0.5 miles being pretty steep. So, we went for a hike.
That first 0.5 was all down and switchbacks. After that is was pretty easy walking except for some muddy parts. Parts of it seemed like an obstacle course. Some trees had fallen over the path, so you had to work around them and then other parts, the plants were crowding in on the path so it was almost like walking through a jungle.
There were some huge trees too. Some had fallen across the path but a path had been sawed through. There were at least a few that were 6 feet across that had fallen across the path. At times you'd be walking through the two pieces.. pretty neat.
Oh, and then after that hike, we were pretty tired and then had to bike a couple miles all uphill back to the RV.
-Miranda
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