Lava Beds (3)

Heading now back down through California, with our first stop being Lava Beds National Monument. This was, by far, my favorite stay here. I think the first foray was when I was much heavier, and thus less able to do stairs, hikes, or heat. The next stay was during Covid when we were feeling risky about being out at all. I remember getting very freaked out when passing unmasked people inside the caves, so I think we bailed on caving after a couple of forays. This time, we were able to really hit all of the easy or moderate caves either by walking or biking to them. It was warm, but not too hot, and it cooled off nicely at night, so overall an extremely pleasant stay.

Richard rode to the campground from the point where the main road (Hill) branches south off State Line Road. The first part of the ride was annoyingly bumpy, due to freeze breaks in the pavement, but the national park road was in excellent condition. We had a miscommunication after I had gotten set up in a good first come first serve site, so that got Richard all tense during what would have been a nice ride. I thought I was telling him all was well and that he could stop worrying about whether there were sites. What he interpreted from my texts was that I had not gotten one of the sites we discussed, so therefore, the campground must be packed, and I must be mad. We have talked a lot lately about how much his subconscious worries about whether I am mad. What is funny/not funny is that often times when he thinks I’m mad, but I’m not, he ends up saying or doing something that cause me to be mad, when I previously wasn’t. P.S. we’ve now been married 32 years. It is fascinating to me how humans can be deep and complex, and yet stupid and simple at the same time.

The first thing we did after clearing things up and having a delicious taco dinner was to walk up to the visitor center and decontaminate our shoes. They are very careful about protecting their bats from White Nose Syndrome, so they ask you to not go into caves wearing clothes that have been inside other caves. They also provide a walkthrough decontamination mat for your shoes that you can access by opening two big doors any time, day or night. You do need to get a Cave Pass from the visitor center before exploring any caves, but once you do, they are accessible 24/7.

We walked through the “intro” cave of Mushpot to get into the caving mood. This one is lit with paved floors, so anyone can experience what the lava tubes are like. It was an easy walk from there to Sentinel Cave. This one is very long (3,280′) and you can go completely through from top to bottom. We went up through the cave for our first pass. You absolutely must have headlamps to enjoy these lava tubes. We didn’t do any serious caving, so didn’t need helmets or knee pads, but for sure you need your hands free and you need a good, bright light. Sometimes the floor is relatively smooth, but you are walking on hardened lava. Sometimes it appears as “cauliflower,” which is very bumpy, and sometimes, you are traversing floors made out of the pieces that have fallen from the ceiling. Sometimes there are stairs made out of metal or rock. Whether you are in an “easy” cave or not, you need to see well or you’re going to bonk your head or miss your footing.

On the exit from the cave, a rather large pack rat ran right in front of me! I got a good look at him, but couldn’t get the phone out fast enough for a clear picture. He was about the size of a squirrel and had a shorter, stubbier tail than a normal rat. He was pretty cute, but probably all full of Hantavirus, so I kept a respectful distance while still trying to see him.

The next day we walked the whole Cave Loop road, hitting any cave that was listed as open, easy, or moderate. Several of the caves get closed every year to protect the bats’ breeding season. In all, we went into: Golden Dome, the first part of Catacombs, Sunshine, Sentinel (again), and Indian Well. The loop road is something like three miles all the way around, and we clocked over five miles on the day.

I can’t capture in pictures what the sparkling golden wall and ceiling coverings looked like. I’ve never seen anything like it. Especially in Golden Dome Cave, the shimmering patterns come from “hydrophobic bacteria,” which happens to repel water and reflect light back as gold or silver. In person, it looks exactly like sparkling precious metals are adorning the walls. Veins and rivulets of glistening, glittery metallic patterns appear above your head as soon as the cave reaches just the right temperature and humidity. I tried and tried to capture it with the iPhone, but you just can’t do it justice. To me, this is one of the most beautiful natural wonders I’ve witnessed, and we have traveled a lot. Richard says the park ranger mentioned the bacteria spectacles were especially extensive this year, so we really lucked out.

In addition, the wildflowers are more popping than I remember. I’m not sure if it’s that I wasn’t as attuned to wildflowers before, or we were here at a later time in the year, or that the massive wildfire that burned through the area has given life to a super bloom this year. I take so many pictures of flowers, not just because they are pretty, but also to identify them with the photos app. Some were familiar, like Penstemon, sage, aster, buckwheat, and poppies. But some were new to me, like California Bee Plant, and Granite Prickly Phlox. So pretty.

We celebrated an awesome anniversary with an awesome dinner. I made fig dijon pork chops, with potatoes and balsamic asparagus. Richard tried a new trick by making a peach cobbler on the grill. Everything was fabulous, even though I fully dropped a pork chop on the dirt while moving it to the grill. Richard acted swiftly by picking it up off the ground and running it under a spigot. It was re-seasoned and re-placed with no harm, no foul. I ate that one and did not detect any unintentional crunchies. The cobbler game is an exciting new world for us. He’s got a simple, but perfect recipe that works with peaches and cherries equally well so far. The topping even browned in the grill, perhaps because we wrapped it loosely with foil. All this, plus a margarita, and we had the best anniversary ever!

The next day we hit all of the farther doable caves by biking to them. In all, we saw: Valentine, Skull, Big Painted Cave and Symbol Bridge, and Merrill Ice Cave. Skull Cave is particularly cool because they found ancient animal and human remains inside. They removed all but one of them, but it’s still a cool (literally) cave. Many stairs take you down a couple of stories, and by the time you get to the bottom, you better have brought a warm outer layer. You can see your breath and I’d estimate it’s close to freezing temperatures. Some of the caves, like Merrill, have had solid ice floors until around 2000, when global warming started to really have an impact.

Big Painted Cave and Symbol Bridge are worth the mile or so hike out. They have pictographs from the time Native Americans used to used them as sacred sites. Symbol Bridge has more clearly identifiable markings, but both are worth seeing. We both think there was at least one alien and probably one dick pic. Someone can correct me, but I think dick pics probably transcend time and culture.

Our last dinner hurrah included an experiment with making fresh tortillas. The ones from Trail Market were so good, we’ve been inspired to try. We learned that you can definitely roll out tortillas using a wine bottle. And by the way, you can also pit cherries using a wine bottle and the thick side of a chopstick. We need to practice more with the water to masa ratio, but they were tasty and totally serviceable.

We are sad to leave this place. On previous stays, I don’t think I was as into it. Chalk this win up to a couple of years getting healthier. When I start to slip into old habits, I will try to remind myself how much more fun I have when heat and movement aren’t so difficult. It’s hard to weigh that against ice cream and donuts, but that’s what calorie counting apps are for. Happy anniversary to us!

Total miles from Diamond Lake (with side trip to Klamath Falls Safeway): 130.4, 17.8 mpg, 5 hours 19 min with stops. Site B26, which was, for the record, the best site. No hookups. No dump. Water spigots. Nice bathrooms with outlets to charge bike battery. Great cell service. Excellent solar. Tippy site, but one of the few back ins, and with table in the shade.