Some of you know about my adventure last February to the Ape Cave, and the subsequent four-hour "hike" through it. It was actually more like what is called a "scramble" which is more than just a nice, casual stroll. A scramble means you are climbing rocks (amongst) and trying to navigate on terrain that is not easy to walk. There were several "lava walls" -- this is a bunch of lava that congregates in one place and forms a barrier. One of those lava walls was about ten feet high, straight up and down. Thank heaven, my companion was used to these type of obstacles and literally had to pull me up to the top of it.
It was pitch black in the "cave." A lava tube is a literally a long tube of hardened lava with a hollowed out center. It was anywhere from 20 to 30 feet wide, and in most spots at least 20 feet high. Did I also tell you it was pitch black? We literally had to wear the type of helmets miners are frequently pictured wearing when they go down into the mines with the headlamps on the front of them. We went in February and it was about 40 degrees inside the cave. The Ape Cave is located about 7 miles from the dome of Mt St Helens that erupted in the early 80s. The Ape Cave itself was formed about 2,000 years ago at the last major eruption of St Helens.
Here are some links to the Ape Cave, Harry Truman, Spirit Lake, and Windy Ridge (a scenic viewing spot between Spirit Lake and looking west south west into the dome of Mt St Helens:
http://www.lewisriver.com/apecave.html , http://www.lewisriver.com/apecavemap.html , http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/LavaTubes/framework.html , http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/recreation/ape-cave/index.shtml , http://photobucket.com/images/Ape%20Caves/ ,
http://www.seattlepi.com/mountsthelens/ ,
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=spirit+lake+washington&search_type=&aq=6&oq=spirit+lake ,
http://www.seattlepi.com/mountsthelens/hary11.shtml ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBplx_FURe8 ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LViVg3wMcYg&feature=fvw ,
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=windy+ridge&search_type=&aq=f
Enjoy!
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