The wind blew all night, and the rain fell. When I arose and cooked my breakfast I was greeted by a shower of ice pellets, and snow covered all the high peaks around us. I also noticed that more people had joined us. Ned and Errin Walker had came in, and they had also given Jeffery a ride. We had quite a caving crew now.
Once everyone had eaten and was suited up to protect themselves from the cold (and possibility of more rain) Brent gave us a group talk and then we loaded into the vehicles and drove 1/2 mile. From there it was on foot the rest of the day. We just walked across the lava flow, following the collapsed tube. Brent and Matt had GPS devices they used to lead us to the caves.
The first cave we came to was called Collapse Cave. It is pretty small, on the edge of a collapsed sinkhole. As we set our stuff down on the edge I proceeded to put my pack on a rock and sit down. At about that time I saw a rattle sticking out from under the rock. Jumping up I stepped back and looked under the rock. There was the first rattle snake I had ever seen in person. And he wasn't happy. But, it wasn't exactly warm out so he was pretty sluggish. I told Brent about my find and he got his camera he has mounted on a long pole, and spent the next few minutes trying to get some neat video shots. I joined a couple guys and crawled into Collapse Cave.
At the bottom of the cave there was a small room. It looked like it had been used as a bobcat den. And then we saw a dead, baby bobcat lying on the floor.
I crawled back out and our group got together and continued on down the lava tube. When we could, we would walk down in the collapsed portion to escape the worst of the nasty wind that continued to blow. But at least the possibility of rain dwindled as each hour passed. After a while of hiking we reached a series of arches. They were pretty neat.
Our next two stops put us into two tiny caves. One had one entrance, the second had two entrances so you could do a thru trip. They were fairly short; but miserable to get into. The entrances were clogged with tumble weeds.
We took our lunch break outside the entrance to Owyhee River Cave. This would be our first "grand cave" of the day.
I was in awe at the size of Owyhee River Cave. It's like a giant subway tunnel that just stretches into blackness. And it doesn't end. It makes your light feel so under powered too. The black lava rock absorbs your light. As we journeyed farther into the cave we came to a massive graveyard. Up above there is a tiny "hidden" skylight entrance. Lots of small animals fall through and die in the bottom of the cave. There is a huge mound of skeletons and decomposing animals.
Our next stop was Burns Cave. It took a while to get into this one as it was completely filled in with tumble weeds. Jeffery, Matt, and Scott dug around for a while until finding a way in.
Burns Cave was just as impressive. It was even neater though, to see that nobody had been inside the cave for years. There were no human foot prints anywhere on the silt floor. It was like we were walking into a giant time capsule. It is hard to believe that molten rock used to flow through these giant tubes. The back of Burns Cave ends very abruptly. A giant, smooth plug just filled the back of the lava tube. As Matt described it, imagine you are sucking through a straw and are slurping up the remaining liquid in the bottom. The liquid comes in spurts, broken up by pockets of air. That is what we were seeing with this plug.
The last cave for the day was Rattlesnake Cave #2. This one was a thru trip. In the big entrance, and out through an upward squeeze and popping out farther along the flow.
In this cave the magma had formed some pretty neat "blades" that ran down off the walls. And like the previous two caves, it was very impressive. After exiting we walked back to the rest of the group and when we were all together we began the long trek back to the trucks. It was almost 3 miles.
When we finally reached camp it was a welcome relief to sit down and cook some dinner. We were treated with a gorgeous sunset that night.
When everyone was done eating we all piled in to Mike and Sam's giant tent and Brent showed us his videos from the day. And then we watched a presentation he had made with pictures and videos from previous trips. It was pretty good. When that was finished, everyone sauntered off to bed. Tomorrow was vertical day!
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