Today we ventured into a lava tube! This was a really big deal to Mason because months ago we watched a documentary about volcanos which focused a lot on lava tubes. And so ever since we discovered there was one here in Bend last week, Mason has been just ecstatic since then to go see it. Of course we were pretty excited as well.
We tried to see this last week when we visited the lava flow across the highway, but upon arrival we found out that timed reservations are required and they were all sold out for that day. We spent a few days a little further away, and so we weren’t able to return until now. But today was finally the day he came back much better prepared. Wearing pants for the first time in several months and carrying sweaters and headlamps in hand, we went through the orientation and we were ready to go down. I was actually quite surprised at how big it was. I had looked up a few around, and I thought this was going to be the smallest one around but it turns out it’s the largest in Oregon!
Already at the top near the opening, you could feel how much colder the cave was. Today was actually the coolest day in a while but it was still about 25°C, but as we were told the inside of the cave, it’s about 4°C.
We misplaced one of her headlamps, and the battery was nearly dead and another. So we rented a flashlight from the park and wow this thing was bright and it’s a good thing because it quickly got very dark down there.
I think they said there was about 150 stairs on our way down and then there was quite a long metal boardwalk over the rocks for the first portion of it.
Once we got down onto the floor of the Cave, it was really cool to explore. What I was surprised to see is that the floor of the cave was almost completely covered in sand. We later found out that that’s actually because as water seeps through the cracks in the in the rock ceiling of the cave, small pieces of dirt and sand come with it and slowly deposit on the floor until now it’s inches if not feet deep.
I also found it really cool to inspect the deep cracks (some you could see over a foot deep into them), the layers of cooled lava that didn’t quite stick to the wall and were separating back off, and the ledges and lava-cicles caused from varying liquid levels inside the cave.
At some points you were walking through a giant tunnel that was 35 feet tall and other times we really had to get duck down because it was only about 4 feet tall. The end of the tunnel is only the end because it’s filled to the ceiling with sand. From what I understand, scientists attempted to dig through the sand to see if there was another side, but abandoned that effort after some time.
Between all the exploring and inspecting we did, along with the fact that we were walking with a four-year-old and a two-year-old, took almost an hour to get the 1.1 miles to the end of the tunnel.
In the end, the whole experience did not disappoint. We all came out a bit chilly and disoriented after spending close to two hours down there, but we spent the whole ride home talking about all the cool things we saw.
