I took my new hiking friend from church on a new adventure today. We headed up to Falls Creek Cave, which is not on the map, and is virtually absent from the internet (save a Japanese site and the local guy’s blog whose book I have). It is touted as one of the longest lava tubes in the world and it is cool.
(Cape Horn that morning)
To get to the cave we drove up several forest roads. I noticed this large ant hill on the side of the road and I had to stop. We eventually found the entrance in a collapsed part of the cave that is now a pit.
To get to the main cave you have to go through an underground passage first, it was filled with big ice formations.
Standing at the entrance to the main cave gives a little sense of vertigo. To get to the cave floor you have to first climb down a three or four story pile of boulders.
Inside the tunnel is huge. It makes a train tunnel look small. We had fun hiking through enjoying the tunnel size, the colorful rocks, and the odd lava formations.
Falls Creek Cave has added fun because of several side tunnels that form loops in the cave. In one tunnel we found this little dew covered bat (about the size of a mouse). The second picture is on of the forks in the cave, we thought it looked like a ship bow.
After exploring we came back to the entrance, you can see Wil standing at the bottom of the boulder pile exit.
I liked these rocks by the exit. The moss made them look pretty cool.
This is part of the road up to the cave. Good thing my minivan can do it.
On the way out I showed Wil one of my favorite waterfalls, Panther Creek Falls.
Ruth thinks there ought to be a unicorn in the rainbow picture.
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