Spelunking at Mt. St. Helen's

We got to Mt. St. Helen's without incident. We shaved off a few more chapters of Harry Potter as well as some more quiz questions, but that was about it. Our initial goal for the Mt. St. Helen's area was to do a climb through some lava tubes called Ape Caves that we had found out about while doing some research into the site. To our dismay, our research also revealed that it was closed after Labor Day. Due to this revelation, we decided to take our time getting to the park since there really wasn't much we wanted to do now besides site see. We pulled into the first National Park Visitor Center we could find so that we could get are stamps and confirm that we could not hike through the Ape Caves. Turns out

that the website was misleading and though the Ape Caves Visitor Center is closed after Labor Day, the actual caves themselves never close, night or day, winter or summer. We were pumped! Our uneventful day just switched gears and we had not only a destination, but also a hike through a cave. There are 2 hikes that the Ape Caves offer, the lower level, easy hike or the upper level,

difficult hike. Confident in our spelunking skills we chose to do the difficult one. There are also 2 roads that go through the National Monument, one on the north side of the mountain where the eruption happened and one on the south. The visitor center was on the north road along with a place called Johnson Ridge which offers the best views of the eruption crater as well as fallen trees from the blast. The mountain had been covered by clouds all day

and it looked like we were going to have another day like we had at Mt. Rainier where we saw nothing of the mountain but its base and the clouds that covered it. But as we approached Johnson Ridge the clouds began to break and we ended up getting the clear, close up view, that we didn't have at Rainier. We messed around in the info center for a while before we had to hit the road to make it to Ape Caves. Since the 2 roads that enter the park do not connect, we had to drive out to the highway and back up the southern entrance which took a few hours to do, so by the time we got to Ape Caves it was almost 5. This was later than we wanted to start since we had to be in Portland that evening for some couchsurfing fun. We had heard that it would take us about 2 hours to complete the trek through the caves and we had high hopes that we could complete the adventure in equal if not less time. We were still about an hour away from Portland and we figured that if we at least called by 7p.m. it would not be that much of an inconvenience for us to show up at their place. When we arrived to Ape Caves we were virtually the only people around. There was about 6 cars scattered throughout the parking lot and no one to be seen or heard, they must have all been in the cave. We geared up for the hike. This included each of us

bringing a flashlight, Katie packed an extra one in her bag, and I hung a lantern from my belt, and thats about it. We did pack some extra batteries just in case, but also forgot to bring a lighter. We did have these headlamps which my Dad got us for Christmas last year, but both of ours were out of batteries and since we didn't pass a store along the way that we thought would have them, we decided to do without them. In the end, it would have proven easier to just make a stop and pick up some extra batteries. We set off for the cave, prepared, not well, but enough for our planned 2 hour journey. We both descended the newly built staircase and were soon immersed in complete darkness. We switched on our lights and began walking down this

enormous tube shaped tunnel, 40 ft. tall and 20 ft. wide. Occasionally I would shine my light forward and it would stretch on until it faded into darkness. Other times it reflected against the walls revealing massive turns in the flow. As we walked my lantern shed intermittent light before us, in sync with my stride, so that it would briefly show what ominously loomed ahead. It was awesome. At times there was a stillness in the air that gave you the feeling that you were being watched but turn a corner and you were chilled moments later by the rushing wind. We passed a few of the landmarks of the cave, that had we paid any attention to the maps of the cave or done any research before diving in headfirst, would have given us obvious clues that we were going the wrong way. These landmarks were the "meatball" and the "railroad tracks." The meatball is a large round piece of the ceiling that fell into the lava flow and got trapped in a narrow passage that now hangs above your head. The railroad tracks look more like tire tracks and I even

speculated that they were just that until Katie convinced me there would be no way to get a tractor or anything down into the cave. They were formed on either side of the cave walls for a short stretch and acted as a levee for the flowing lava in the middle. Both of these landmarks are located on the easy hike. At the time, Katie and I knew none of this information and were left to bask in our wonder and argue about our false speculations. After a while, we reached, what seemed to us, a crossroads. In front of us stood apparently 2 ways for us to continue on. The cave was cut in half, only not vertically, but horizontally, leaving us the option of crawling underneath, or climbing above. Initially we believed that both paths met up after this obstacle, so naturally we chose the bottom path. At first we had to duck down to proceed but soon had to resort to crawling on our hands and knees to finally laying down and army crawling until we could see where the tunnel abruptly ended. After a difficult turnaround we were back at the crossroads and decided we had to go up to continue on. This would prove much harder than the lower path did. At the easiest spot to climb, the ledge was around 7 ft. tall, with no good hand grips, and a very uneven, wet floor. We had heard that the Ape Caves boasted an 8 ft. wall of lava that you had to climb and we supposed that this may be it, though we still both thought that it didn't make much sense. I hoisted Katie up to the top and she turned around and anchored he feet to some rocks and helped lift me up. Keep in mind, this is all going on with only our tiny light sources to keep us from infinite darkness. We made it to the top and almost immediately were forced to crawl again. This time the passage was even smaller, about 10 inches tall and 2 ft. wide. Katie graciously appointed me as scout this time and had me proceed ahead to see if anything opened up further down the path. It did not, another dead end. I again had to shimmy my way through the small opening and then we had to face the difficult part, getting down. We did not have the option of jumping because of the factors I described earlier, so we had to stick with what got us up there in the first place. Katie again anchored her feet and lowered me down as best she could, then I guided her feet and supported her until we were both back on solid ground. The effort was both nerve wracking and physically strenuous on both of us. Happy with our mild victory, we began the walk back toward the main entrance feeling, as it seemed at the time, ultimately defeated by the cave. We assumed that there was a path that we had missed somewhere that would lead us to the difficult trail and indeed that was the case. Just before we

reached the light of the main entrance, we stopped for a moment and turned off our lights and stood completely still, listening to the cave and experiencing the darkness. We stood for about 2 minutes in this state which could have been an eternity for all I know, then clicked our lights back on and headed back to the start. Now we were in a little bit of a dilemma because even if we could find the harder path we would be another 2 to 3 hours later arriving to the house of our would-be host. We had not contacted them aside from our couchsurfing request, so we were a little nervous whether or not it would be OK to call at 9 p.m. and ask for directions to their place. We decided that worst case scenario we would sleep in the van again, so we decided to take the difficult path, if we could find it. When we got to the stairs there was a sign on the wall at the bottom which clearly stated the upper path began behind the stairwell. I assume that Katie and I were so eager and enthralled by the cave that neither of us noticed this sign on the way in. We trudged on and immediately understood that this was going to be a different hike. The path we had just taken was large and though you had to watch your every step, there were not giant piles of boulders blocking it. On this path, there were many. The boulder piles were caused by the roof caving in after the intense heat left, it began to cool and crack which caused these massive pileups. We scaled approximately 27 boulder piles when it was all done not to mention the 8 ft. high lava fall. The lava fall looks exactly how it would if you took a waterfall and froze it. It was the most obvious sign of molten rock on the entire hike. You sometimes forgot that everything that you were standing on was once flowing lava and that it was likely filled to the roof, but at the lava fall, it was a hard fact to ignore. Though this path was difficult and the moving was slow at times since you had to literally jump from boulder to boulder, it was a piece of cake compared to our earlier climb at the dead end of the easy cave. Katie and I both managed to knock our heads on the cavern walls leaving us with war wounds that kept a soft spot on our heads for days. As we got closer and closer to the surface you could see the elements of the cave change. We first noticed dead trees that were washed down through openings. Then you could see the moisture in the air which was a direct result to the rising temperature which was becoming evident as well. We passed a few holes in the cave ceiling that peered out into the now night sky until we reached the ladder that would lead us out of the cave into a beautiful starry sky. We left the darkness of the cave and entered the darkness of the night. As we were exiting, I decided it would be a good time for a photograph, Katie emerging from the small opening, but when I pulled my camera out I noticed a problem. Apparently during one of our crawling excursions, the camera was in my pocket and was scraped across a rock, damaging the LCD screen beyond repair. Sad but true, the Ape Caves had claimed the life of my camera. We didn't have much time to dwell on this since though we were out of the caves, we were not out of the woods yet. The cave spat us out 1.5 miles away from where we started and in the dark we had difficulty picking up the trail. First we walked in the general direction which we had just come from until we spotted one of those diamond shaped trail signs. We followed this trail back, praying that it was leading us to the parking lot or at least somewhere that had a sign or a map. Eventually, it did lead us back to the main cave entrance where we notice 3 guys all dressed in white jump suits getting ready to explore the cave at night. Judging by their cars in the parking lot, they were with the park service, but we still have no idea what they were doing out there, especially at night. We drove off and headed back to cell phone service so that I could make a call to our hosts and ensure that they were still up for company. Thankfully they were, and even had tried to reach us a few times to see what happened to us. They told us that they were usually up late and wouldn't be in bed for a while, so I stepped on the gas and we headed into Portland, Oregon late that night.