I have been meaning to write something on here for months... in fact this particular post is actually about a trip I took in early May. Sad I know. But I've procrastinated long enough, so here is my tale of my journey to the APE CAVES!
First of a bit of background on the caves, they are lava tubes near Mount St. Helens, in fact they are the longest continuous lava tube in the continental United States at 3,975 m, and in fact one of the longest in the world. The cave got its name from the cub scout troop who first explored them in 1950, the Mount St. Helens Apes. (It was discovered by a logger, who had the misfortune of falling in a sink hole while in his truck.) The have some interesting geology, you can read about it a
HERE. Oh and the site also has a reputations for
sasquatch sightings, in fact one legend has it that it was near here that there was a confrontation between miners and sasquatch in 1924. (another reason to call them the Ape caves!)
We headed out to the caves on a particularly warm and sunny May day,
since really what is a better way to spend such a day than in a cold
dripping dank cave! The drive from Seattle was about 3 hours so when we
saw the first sign to the Ape Caves we were rather disappointed to see a
sign that stated closed. I decided that we could at least continue to
the caves and if they were indeed closed, just hike about above ground.
Lucky for us they were open, though their was a sign up that stated that
you shouldn't enter if you had been spelunking in other caves due to
possible contamination of a bacteria that had been killing bats. None of
us had, so we figured we posed no threat. (In case you were wondering there were no bats in the cave).
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| The Entrance to the Ape Caves |
The Entrance to the cave really is just a gaping hole in the ground, though there is a stair way that leads you down to the bottom. Once there, you can either go to the lower tunnel, which is a relatively short and easy trail, or head to the more challenging upper trail which is about 1 1/2 miles long. We chose the upper trail. Though it starts out pretty easy going, I would not recommend it to anyone out of shape or children. We made sure to have plenty of lighting, I had my head lamp and a back up flashlight and D. and N. each had flashlights plus back ups.
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| N. in the beginning part of the cav |
One result from going pretty early in the season, was other than a couple people at the entrance, we had the cave completely to ourselves. When we all stood still you could just hear the dripping of the water (everything is very damp) and occasionally a gust of cold wind blowing down the tunnel. It was pretty eery, especially considering even with our lights it was quite dark.
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| the path gets narrower. |
The path also quickly got more and more challenging, the path narrowed and often times you would have to climb over large piles of boulders. Occasionally it was hard to tell which way to go. At one point N. struggled through a small crevasse only to discover an easier path just on the other side (lucky for us he went first!). As mentioned before it was very damp, as in constant cold slimy drips from the ceiling, but in places there were what I'll just describe as cave ponds. The biggest you had to shuffle around on a rather narrow ledge and was probably a foot or two deep.
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| cave pond |
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| tight fit! |
However the most challenging aspect was the Wall. The Wall had been
described in several things I read prior to going up, so I was a bit
hesitant as to whether I'd make it up it, not good at pull ups! It was
indeed a challenge at it is really an 8ft wall made of sharp, slimy rock
with only one place for a foot hold and not much as far as hand holds. I
scuffed up my elbows pretty badly even through my jacket, but made it!
There was a strange white eyeless spider climbing with me, and I figured
he was my moral support! (wish I had gotten a photo, but he disappeared
once I dug my camera back out)
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| D. climbs the wall |
The Wall is somewhere around 3/4ths of the way in to the tunnel. Not much further is a hole in the ceiling, this is NOT the exit (don't try and climb out), but nice to see the sun nonetheless. I had a hard time knowing distance and time in the cave, but it wasn't too far past this that you saw the light of the exit. I am happy to say they supply you with a nice (if somewhat rickety) ladder/metal staircase to get out!
The place where we exited was quite lovely too, with an abundance of
chipmonks, pika and some pretty birds that seemed to glide and hop more
than fly (
Clark's Nutcracker??).
I am not sure what happened to the photos I took, maybe I was just
distracted by all the critters! Though it is only a 1 1/2 miles, it was
quite tiring and I think it tooks up at least 2 hours to get to the end.
To get back to the car we took the surface route, which was quite
beautiful and still snowy.
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| we made it through! |
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| Light at the end of the tunnel |
If you ever have a chance to do these caves yourself I highly recommend
it! Just remember come prepared, bring warm gear & rain coat (it's
about 45 F all year) and flashlights. I highly recommend a head lamp as
you can have your hands free. Also the ground is sharp, I tend to wear
thin soles no matter what (think I wore my converse), but I was
definitely happy to walk back on the soft trail... so maybe opt for some
shoes with decent soles. Oh and gloves, as I said the basalt can be
sharp and on top of that it is slimy from the moisture and possibly
mold/fungi/who knows what. Oh and as for the Sasquatch... on our way back there was a large crash like a large animal breaking through the brush or a tree branch falling. We thought nothing of it but just a few yards later there was an other one closer to us, as if something were following. D. thinks he saw something large and brown moving off into the trees, now it was most likely an elk... BUT you never know! ;)
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| the trail back. |
