Lava River Cave

    After Lava Butte, we traveled a short distance south to Lava River Cave. It is a "lava tube cave," which I had never seen before. Evidently a stream of lava carved out a channel as it flowed, and the sides gradually solidified and crusted upwards and over to form a roof. The lava eventually flowed out, leaving the roof and sides as an empty "tube" more than a mile long and running under the current Highway 97. You have to bring a jacket because it is always about 40 degrees Fahrenheit inside. Since the tube is not "improved," you either bring a flashlight or rent a lantern. We got the lantern.

Here is the entrance to the cave. As soon as we walked down into this little depression, it started to get cold.

Gail holding our lantern.

A closer view of the entrance.

We met two new friends there, Mr. Heung Kook Park and his wife of two weeks, both from Korea.

This is what it looks like as you descend into the cave.

As Tom Snyder used to say, this is the last thing a tuna sees before they close the can.

A typical view inside the cave. I swear it looks like some human with a big machine cut this cave out of the rock, but it was only lava. Before this, no one could have convinced me that lava could have done such strange things, but there it was for all to see.

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