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Category: Oregon Caves National Monument

Oregon Caves tour (Part two)

For part one of the Oregon Caves tour click here.

Welcome back to Oregon Caves National Monument. If you didn’t leave the cave at the 110 exit then there’s about 400 more stairs to go. 

Cathedral Arch

Caves actually get more beautiful with age.

Banana Grove

Niagara Falls

Up until 1886 Niagara Falls was the end of the cave. Then one day Walter Burch felt a breeze and found a small hole which he enlarged. He had to crawl through in his longjohns to get through, pushing his clothes in front of him and carrying a candle for light.
Walter climbed about 30 feet down a rope and crawled through the “blow hole” ….

Blow hole passage. Big stalagmite called the wishing post was once rubbed by every visitor.

…and found himself in what is now called Miller’s Chapel.

Miller’s Chapel

Named after Joquin Miller, also known as the poet of the Sierras, who helped the cave become protected in 1909. The “Chapel” part, because of a wedding.

Historic photo from NPS archives

Time to move on to the largest room in the cave.

Leaving Miller’s Chapel

The Ghost Room

Welcome to the Ghost Room, the size of a football field. Sorry no ghosts. From here we’ll be making a side trip…

Stairs up to Paradise Lost

…climbing about 90 steps round trip. You can pass on this if you want, but….

Paradise Lost

From the Ghost Room floor we are about 150 feet underground. It’s all uphill from here for the rest of the Oregon Caves tour.

Angel Falls

Entering the Wedding Cake Room

We’re on the last leg of our journey and will be passing through more human blasted tunnels and natural cave.

Broken flowstone shows calcite crystal formation

Black bear bones

During reconstruction of the trail in 1998 black bear bones dating 3,000 years old were discovered. Many fossils of small animals have been found near cave openings. But the oldest bones belong to a 38,000 year old jaguar discovered not far from the Ghost Room in the early 1990s.

Exit tunnel and air-lock door

If we can just make it through this door we’ll see the light of day again.

Looking out cave exit

I’ll bet you figured we’d never make it out of the cave. We only saw about one third of the total cave, the rest requires much crawling and climbing. There’s three and a half miles of cave passages. So, do you want to go back in and crawl around?

Looking back at cave exit

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The gypsy life of a seasonal park ranger Summer 2003

Desert sunset Arizona

Desert sunset

Ah, the winter desert was beautiful to walk through and the sunsets were spectacular for this gypsy life.  Yet as spring approached I knew it was time to head back to the Northwest and return to work as a cave guide at Oregon Caves National Monument.

Chalet and visitor center Oregon Caves National Monument Oregon

Oregon Caves Chalet houses the Visitor Center & dormitory above. (Sorry the pano is contorted, the building is not bent.)

When I arrived in March there was still snow.

Siskyou Mountains Oregon

View into the Siskyou Mountains from Lake Mt.

Yet it soon melted and the beauty of spring and summer slipped away, mostly underground.

Oregon Caves National Monument Oregon

Calcite deposit formations, Oregon Caves National Monument

Carson and I went hiking after work almost every day; the forest was right outside our door.

Carson in Lake Creek Siskyou National Oregon

Carson in Lake Creek, Siskyou National Forest

Sometimes I’d hike on the monument where he couldn’t go along.

Big Tree trail Oregon Caves National Monument Oregon

Big Tree trail, Douglas fir has widest girth in Oregon

As fall approached I decided to stay as a volunteer at Oregon Caves.

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Oregon Caves tour (Part one)

Welcome to Oregon Caves National Monument. We are about to go on a virtual Oregon Caves tour. Hope you’re ready to climb 527 stairs in the next half mile, mostly up. In order to protect this special place, I will ask you not to touch the cave walls as oils from your skin are left behind and the story of this cave is based on water. Oil and water just don’t mix.

The main entrance of four natural cave entrances
Elijah Davidson discovered the cave in 1874 on a hunting trip when he followed his dog chasing a bear into a dark cave opening. With only six matches he didn’t go far. Yet he ran out of fire and groped his way through the dark exiting the cave several hours later.

Entering Watson’s Grotto

Please watch your head. Is everybody comfortable? I can let you out the gate right now. Otherwise, you’re stuck with me until we reach the 110 exit, about half way through the Oregon Caves tour.

The rock surrounding us is marble which metamorphosed from limestone that was once at the bottom of the ocean. Uplift caused cracks and fractures in the marble which was then dissolved and eroded away by the power of water.

Leaving Watson’s Grotto

We’ll be walking through some of these enlarged fractures.

Petrified Gardens

And discover how water can also decorate a cave. As acidic water from above ground slowly works its way through cracks in the marble it absorbs and carries the mineral calcite. Then when the drop of water enters an air filled passage the carbon dioxide is released into the air, the water falls, and the calcite is deposited. If the water falls slowly the deposit is usually on the ceiling in the form of stalactites (that’s “c” for ceiling). If the water falls rapidly the calcite can be deposited as flowstone or stalagmites (that’s “g” for ground). We’ll see stalagmites further ahead.

At about 60 ft, deepest known Douglas Fir tree root

Enter the Belly of the Whale

An active creek still runs through parts of the cave and flows out the main entrance. This flowing water erodes rock and increases the size of passages. Openings in caves come and go over time changing the dynamics of the creek. This key-hole passage formed because of the change in flow. Evidence is seen by the shelf-like bevels on the walls. Look down into the River Styx to see how it still carves the marble.

Water erosion reveals the true shades-of-gray marble

Dynamite blasted connection tunnel

Yet humans also had a hand in shaping the cave. During the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps blasted a connecting tunnel between two known cave passages to make touring easier. No more crawling on hands and knees unless desired.

Jack’s Pass once had a bottle-jack sporting some rock fall

We’ll just lip through Jack’s Pass into the Imagination Room.

I call this the “heart” of the cave, Imagination Room

This imaginative heart shape is formed by a combination of mineral and bacteria. Originally named Gnome’s Milk in Germany, it is believed to have curative properties similar to Neosporin.

We’re almost to the next natural cave entrance, or exit if you’re ready to leave. Just up these stairs…

Stairs from Imagination Room

….and through this squeeze.

Originally called “Fat man’s squeeze”

This is called the 110 exit as we have climbed about 110 feet up inside the mountain. Historically, it was referred to as “the ladies entrance” because of the easier and shorter journey deeper into the cave from here. Imagine crawling in long skirts. So you can leave here and walk a gentle quarter mile on paved trail back to the visitor center.

110 exit

Or continue with me deeper into the earth and discover more natural sculpture in part two of the tour.

National Parks and Monuments, Oregon, Oregon Caves National Monument , , , , , 9 Comments

Lijit

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