Tuolumne Meadows Vacation
Day 13,14,15
Returning home
Sunday morning, we broke down the RV and headed for home. Our original
plan was to breeze through Lava Beds National Monument (just to see the
visitor center and get the stamp for our National Parks Passport), and
then be in Crater Lake National Park by Sunday night. We would then
spend Monday at Crater Lake, stay there Monday night, and drive home Tuesday
morning.
As things usually happen, however, things didn't go according to plan.
From about 100 miles out of Lava Beds, we called and found out the visitor
center would be closing early since it was Sunday. As we got close
to Lava Beds, we decided that we would change our plans and stay there
Sunday night, see the visitor center Monday morning, and head out to Crater
Lake.
As we pulled of the highway to get to Lava Beds, I realized we were running
out of gas. Fortunately, there was some town whose name I've forgotten
right off the road. We turned down the road to get there. What
we found was a Bar/Restaurant/Grocery/Gas Station being run by a very odd
family, and a strange RV/cabin park next door. The entire experience
was very "Mad Max"-esque, but Trish didn't feel comfortable enough staying
for me to get out the video camera and capture this peculiar bit of americana.
We got to Lava Beds about an hour before Sunset. The climate and
terrain felt very similar to that of Eastern Oregon, with Sage and Juniper
being the dominant plants. I really liked being there, as it remineded
me very much of the time I spent in Eastern Oregon at OMSI's Hancock Field
Station.
Anyway, we watched the sunset and had a delicious grilled cheese sandwich
and tomato soup dinner. Did I mention that we love having an RV?
The next morning, we went to the visitor center. Apparently, the
famous Modoc Indian Wars occured here. We found out that Lava Beds
is most famous for its lava tubes and, unlike lava tubes in Oregon's Bend
area and in Southern Washington, the tubes are extemely complex, with multiple
levels, passages, and rooms. There are dozens of tubes, with the
largest ones having thousands of feet of navigable passage.
Needless to say, I was very excited. We bought hardhats and maps
and checked out the free flashlights. Normally beginners would go
to Mushpot Cave, which has exibits and lights in it, but it was closed
for cleaning (the lights make moss grow on the walls of the cave), so we
went to Valetnine cave, a relatively simple cave with 1,000 feet of passage.
We explored every foot of passage, and as you can see in the pictures,
it got pretty tight in places.
Having done this relatively easy cave, we went of to Labrynth cave.
For some reason, this single cave is listed in three sections, each with
their own name: Labrynth, Lava Brook, and ThunderBolt. Labrynth
has 1,239 feet of passage, Lava Brook has 859, and Thunderbolt has 2,561.
This cave was alot more challenging. Many passages had a maximum
clearance of 2 feet, which makes for some pretty tight crawling.
It was a total blast exploring the caves - it was just complex enough that
there was a chance of getting lost if we didn't pay attention to where
we were going.
In the Lava Brook portion, the ceiling had a really cool texture to it:
Finishing Labrynth and Lava Brook took quite some time, since we had to
go through some places several times to cover all the passages. We
in fact missed a passage on the map that was so small we didn't see it.
When we tried to do the Thunderbolt portion, we were stopped by a ranger,
who said it was a Big Eared Bat breeding area, and that we would disturb
them by going in there. You'd think they could get a hotel....
Having been prevented from doing Thunderbolt, we came back out again, and
walked back to the Truck. We had had our fill our caving, but by
the time we finished lunch, we wanted to go again, so we went back and
did Blue Grotto cave, with its 1,541 feet of passage.
By the time we got back from the Blue Grotto, and got the RV torn down,
it was about 5pm. We drove to the other part of Lava Beds, which
is a small, separate enclave of the park which has in it a wall carved
with petroglyphs. The mountian face into which they were carved used
to be an island, and the ancient Modoc Indians would come out in boats
and carve their symbols and glyphs into the canoe-level face of the mountain.
The real tragedy was to see all of the graffiti and destruction of the
oringinal rock art. The CCC put up a huge fence to protect the cliff
in the '30s, but it was largely too late.
After leaving Lava Beds (and promising ourselves we would come back again
to finish off the other caves), we drove the two hours or so to Carter
Lake and stayed there Monday night.
On Tuesday, we drove around the west side of Crater Lake. We stopped
at the visitor center, which was pretty mediocre, and then continued on.
Our plan was to ride the motorboat out to Wizard Island, in the center
of the lake, but when we got to the ticket booth, we discoved that the
rides were sold out for the rest of the day.
Not to be discouraged, we decided to walk from the road (which is on the
rim of the caldera), down the trail to the lake itself. The
hike down was very steep, but it was rewarding to see the deep blue warters
up close, at this, the deepest lake in the Americas.
As we all know, what goes up must go down, and vice versa. The ascent
to the rim from the lake was steep and slow going, but Trish set a pretty
aggressive pace, so we made it back to the truck in no time. From
there, we headed home.
Our yosemite vacation was a lot of fun - I got to climb a couple big mountains,
Trish got to do her first backpack, and we got to go caving. I hope
you've enjoyed this virtual trip as much as we enjoyed the real one!