Central Oregon Caving…

Life is pretty predictable. Wake up. Go to school/class. Go home to chores/study. Stay up long enough to get half an hour of things you actually care about. Sleep and do it again. The only thing worse than the repetitious cycle of mundane marginality would be doing the same thing this weekend that you did last weekend. So, here is my proposal: Research and do that local thing you have heard about since you moved there but never took the initiative to do. I lived in Bend, OR for 6 years. I hiked, skied, snowboarded and camped as much as I could. I touched a lot of mountain tops and hit every coffee joint and micro brewery of particular notoriety and then 4 more. I did, however, always hear people talking about Central Oregon caves and “caving.” (More popularly referred to as spelunking) Side note: it’s completely acceptable to add the “ing” suffix to anything to create verbs in true Oregonian style. They also taught me: hot tubbing, mudding, four wheeling and countless other gerunds. </digression>

So one random and fateful day, I called up a few friends, grabbed some flashlights and headed out for some caves. Wouldn’t you have guessed how much fun we had? Underneath Central Oregon are net works of “lava tubes” that range from meters to miles long. These remnants of Oregon’s formative volcanic youth, leave a subterranean treasure of adventure for those willing to risk some claustrophobia. Let me preface this with a disclaimer: I’m not telling you to climb in caves, I’m just telling you to do that fun, local thing you’ve always wanted to try. If it is caves or skydiving, do it at your own risk. Please, research the venue, bring the proper safety gear and don’t sue me – half of nothing is still nothing. Here is a photo-journal of a trip.

(If you are interested, here is another trip and post here.)

Fact: Every journey begins with a two mile hike over serrated lava rock. 

On this day, we decided to check out some caves on a hike to Belknap Crater. This crater is a small shield volcano settled just off the McKenzie-Santiam Pass, a seasonal biway, between Sisters and Eugene, OR. The crater is located roughly 15 miles west of Sisters and just past the Dee Wright Observatory.

After the hike in, we notice a couple of cave entrances.

I like to scout the around the entrance to look for other opening, and get a feel for the overall integrity of the surface.

Here is a drop entrance into a laval tube cave in Central Oregon. We scale in carefully and enjoy that first brisk chill of a cave entrance. It’s almost like you can feel the cool, damp breath of stale time seeping into your bones.

We tread in carefully around the often collapsed entrances. We watch out for sudden drop offs and hanging rocks. It’s really easy to get tunnel vision, no pun intended, and focus on just the floor or ceiling. Keep aware of your surroundings and pay attention to your movements. When we move, we travel in a column so we can mitigate our frontal hazards.

It’s really hard to see, but here is a thirty-foot cave drop in the lavel tube. It kinda curves down and there was even a chem-light down there.

Don’t be fooled, it’s not all danger down in the caves. In fact, it’s actually very safe if you take the right precautions. There are plenty of natural sights that you can’t see anywhere else. You can catch stalactites, natural ice caves and amazing natural skylights. Central Oregon has some Skylight Caves a short drive from this crater near Sisters, Oregon.

Here we are exiting the lava tube and messing around before we head out to the next leg of our hike.

Some Safety Considerations: Caves are dark. They are typically remote and generally uninhabited. In order to mitigate some inherent risks, I tend to take certain precautions. Before we head out, we call some local friends, tell them how long we plan to be out and give them our car description. We stop by the local Ranger’s office to check on conditions and get some safety tips before we head out. We pack some water, protein bars and saltines in case things run longer than we think. We water proof our phones and turn them off when we’re not using them. You never know how quickly the weather will change.

We bring some flashlights, headlamps and even chem-lights for journey. Headlights are good for when you may have to shimmy into a tight spot, but it’s good to have some more powerful handhelds too. It’s recommended that you bring three light sources per person. You’d be surprised how low these caves get quickly and you need to look down at the uneven ground at the same time. The chem-lights (chemical lights) are great disposable and cheap lights. We try to not use the disposable ones and always try and retrieve them. I use the chems to toss into small opening where you may have to shimmy, and I drop them into sudden drop offs to figure out depth. I’m told we should were helmets, and I always wear something on my head. Here is a Website with some great recommendations for beginners.

It’s very important to bring and use flashlights because of sudden drop offs.