Ape Caves

Two days ago, I had the pleasure of going with my mom, her friend, and his friend and son to the Ape Caves at the foot of Mt. St. Helens. They're called the Ape Caves, not because there are any apes in this part of the world, but because the explorers who found them in 1951 were part of a local club called the 'Apes,' a somewhat less popular variation of the 'Eagles,' I would imagine.

Anyway, it was about 2.5m total crawling and walking through caves, which was at first boring - the lower cave was almost entirely walking until the very end when we got to army crawl - but got better, as the upper cave was mostly giant rock falls. I was afraid of the dark when I was a kid, but have since moved on to water, so dark enclosed spaces aren't much of a problem for me, and it was really quite fun to climb around in a cave with nothing but a tiny light clipped to my Glacier National Park visor (better souvenir than one of those resin figurines). The third picture was taken of three of us inside a lava tube created by a tree - the tree burns while the lava flows around it, but doesn't entirely burn up until the lava has cooled, at which point a tube is formed. I don't recall how long it was, but it was quite fun. At one point, I felt rather like a gopher. Anyway, if you ever need something to do on a weekend or day off, check out the Ape Caves. Much fun.

Tomorrow, we're planning on going hiking at Rainier. I haven't been there in quite awhile, and I'm really looking forward to taking some pictures with my camera. I got my Singapore pictures developed, and even if I do say so myself, some are really quite good.