Monday, September 3

Ape Caves, Mount St. Helens

I got a phone call Sunday morning stating that I get out of bed and get ready to go to the Ape Caves near Mt. St. Helens and that I had an hour before they arrived.  We’ve been talking about going to the Ape Caves for a few weeks now.  We wanted to head down before the weather turned and it started snowing.  That area closes from Nov to May because of the snow. 


We made a sandwich, put some snackies together and some water/drinks.  We grabbed our sweatshirts, a flashlight and put some walking shoes on.  By that time, Bob and Bev rolled up.  We tossed our stuff in the car and we were on our way to Woodland down I-5.

The car needed gas so we stopped at the Safeway for a few minutes.  Mom needed some AA batteries and Bev wanted some candy and I just went in for the sake of going into the store.  Moments later, I needed some maple bars.  Safeway has the best maple bars hands down!  There were only two maple bars left and I took them both smiling from ear to ear.  Haha! I took the last of the maple bars!  This has happened to me several times.  I want a maple bar and they were all gone.  I paid and walked back to the car.  Everyone thought I bought them all for myself and that I was rude for not buying them a doughnut.  First off, I had no idea I was going in for doughnuts, secondly, I had no idea what kind everyone liked, also, I only had enough cash on me for two of them, plus, I had the intention of sharing them and everyone getting half of a maple bar.  Everyone enjoyed their half of a doughnut.

We turned the GPS on to see which ones we haven’t gotten yet.  There were only a few of them.  We took care of the place a few months back when we did the 503 loop.  We grabbed one of the Wood to Coug to BG caches.  We figured it must have not been there when we were here last.  It was an easy guard rail grab.  The next one was a few miles down the road.  When we got there we all remembered which one it was.  For being a 1.5/1.5 park and grab, it’s been hard for everyone who DNF’d it, which is most of the recent people who have been there.  We gave it a good educated look and moved on.  The next few were up by the Ape Caves.

I have not been to the Ape Caves since at least 1995.  That trip was with my Girl Scout Troop.  We hit up the entire mountain that day.  I really don’t remember much about it but I do remember being in the caves and all the trees on the north side that looked like tooth picks.  Before that, it was with my family in 1992.

We got into Cougar and noticed there were a lot of people camping out in their RV’s, tents and people with boats and fishing gear.  It was such a change in only a few months.  We headed up the road towards the caches we had planned to do.  Our first earthcache was about when the lava came through the forest and burnt the trees from where they stood.  Now, there are holes, in a few places very deep holes.  We walked around the boardwalk gathering information that we needed off the info panels.  Some of the information was pretty interesting.   


We made it to a place known as “the Crawl.”  Bob went down the ladder first and checked out the hole.  He wasn’t going to bend that way.  I went down the ladder and luckily Bev had a flashlight.   I crawled inside and headed towards the end where Bev and mom were waiting.  I hit my hand on the side of the cave when I came out but it was fun crawling through the tube. 



We walked around the rest of the boardwalk and back to our car.  Some Asians approached us and asked us about the mountain and where to go to actually see it.  The north side you can, where we are you really can’t see it.  This area is mostly for camping, hiking, boating and going inside the Ape Cave.  They looked disappointed.  They wanted to see the mountain.  We directed them towards Johnston Ridge.  They were going to Mount Rainier the next day. 

We hopped into the car and headed towards the Ape Caves parking lot.  Everyone in the world was there.  There was a sign that said Ape Cave Closed.  How could a cave close?  We assumed it was the parking lot after driving past several vehicles parked along the side of the road.  There were tons of people here today!  I then realized it was Memorial Day weekend, there are suppose to be people everywhere!  We went down to the lower parking area and amazingly by luck we found a great spot under the shade.  We grabbed flashlights, a sweatshirt and a few waters and headed towards the cave. 


 We walked past the information building, for some reason I remember it being bigger, and headed down the trail to the cave.  We kept in mind what we needed to do while in the cave to log the earthcache.  We descended down the rock staircase and into the darkness.  It was at least 40 degrees cooler than it was outside.  We took the lower cave walk because it was shorter (.75 mi, 1 hr round trip) and we really weren’t prepared for the upper cave section (1.5 mi, 3 hours round trip).  Maybe another time.

Some info about the cave:

The Ape Caves formed about 1,900 years ago but it wasn’t discovered until 1947 by a logger named Lawrence Johnson.  In 1951, a local youth group lead by Harry Reese extensively explored the cave.  Leaving footprints where no one ever had, these lucky early explorers were able to travel through a pristine lava tube full of amazingly shaped and fragile formations.  The youth group dubbed themselves the St. Helens Apes, in memory of a 1924 hoax perpetrated by tow boy scouts.  The scouts decided to throw large, lightweight pumice rocks in to the canyon.  Unbeknownst to them, there was a cabin below with two miners inside.  Seeing what looked like two small ape like figures high up the canyon, makes ape noises and hurling big ricks, the miners reported that apes attacked them.  From this legend, Ape Cave received its name.

Ape Cave marks an unusual part of Mount St. Helen’s eruptive history.  It was the only time in its 40,000 year existence the volcano erupted red, hot flowing lava, like Hawaii’s volcanoes.  Eruptions of fluid lava, called basalt, are rare in the Cascade mountain range because magma rising below the Cascades have high silica content.  The more silica in the magma, the less fluid it becomes.  Thicker magma with suspended gasses in it makes eruptions more explosive.  About 1,900 years ago, fluid basalt lava poured down the southern flank of the volcano and entered a stream channel.  As the lava flowed, its surface cooled, creating a hardened crust.  This crust insulated the molten lava beneath, allowing it to travel a great distance.  The flowing lava beneath the crust melted and carried away rock and soil below it.  This “thermal erosion” deepened and widened the channel, forming the cave walls.  The level of lava in the tube rose and fell as the eruption surged and slowed.  When flows stabilized for a period of time, lava built up on the walls, making ledges that reveal the depth of the flow.  Hot fluid lava pulsed between the walls and ceiling for months, possibly up to a year, until the eruption subsided and lava drained from the tube.  A spectacular 13,042 feet long lava tube, the third longest in the United States, was created as a result of this rare eruption.

We headed down the lava tube with our small flashlights.  They weren’t that bright but bright enough to see where we were going.  There were plenty of people with lights in the cave nearby so it didn’t matter.  We navigated our way though the lower section of the cave.  We helped Bev out several times because she is “not an off road vehicle.”  There were some parts of the cave which were very rocky and some places you had to step down and over large rocks. 





 After a while of walking we made it to the end of the lower cave.  We took a few pictures and looked around before we headed back.  The walk back was definitely quicker.  When we got back to the stairs we looked for the disc we were suppose to find for part of our log.  We didn’t see it the first time.  I went back and found it while Bev went to the car to get the GPS and everyone used the bathroom.

We found out we missed the one by the cave entrance so we walked back out there and grabbed it.  Later one after we got home, we found out we missed one down the trail towards the upper portion of the cave.  We’ll have one for next time we go!  We went back to the car and drove back towards the one we missed the first time we came up here back in the spring.  We parked at the gate and walked the half mile in.  It was a pretty walk through the woods.  We got to the clearing and towards the cache zone and saw it right away.  We dug through the bag of toys, signed the log and enjoyed the area before heading back to the car.  



A few miles down the road, we found this dirt road with four caches on it.  Of course we went and found them.  We didn’t realize how often people barreled down this road.  Dust was everywhere and it made it worse when the two pick up trucks raced by.  We were covered in dust.  The first one we found quickly, the second was hard and we had to come back to it on the way to the highway, the third one took some looking and the fourth one, wow…took us forever because the GPS jumped around, the hint sucked and the terrain rating was so wrong.  A 1.5 terrain rating should not mean you have to climb a hill.  We climbed up a hill.

We got back in the highway and headed towards Woodland and got some pizza from a local pizza joint.  We used the bathroom, washed our hands and waited a long time for a to-go pizza.  We ate pizza on the way home and got home after dark.  It was a nice day for some caching and cave exploring.

Next adventure:  Vancouver and Renton for the WSGA 10th Anniversary.

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