The Ape Caves of Washington State

We decided to have a little adventure this weekend. We went to the Ape Caves at Mt St Helens!

Scott had been wanting to take me there since we moved to Washington and so we went on the first day you could get in for the year. It was strange to see snow all over the ground after leaving the 80 degree weather in Seattle.

I was pretty excited to go adventuring inside a cave and this was a great place to go. Plus, it adds to our list of biggest, longest, tallest, ect...natural records. We are sort of unofficially trying to see them all.

So we entered the caves.....

(All I could think about at first was this awful movie we had watched the night before called The Descent. It was about a group of women who get trapped in a cave with a group of crazy people eating monsters.)

The Ape Caves is the "longest continuous lava tube in the continental United States" and I know that may sound a bit boring to some but it's not. As we walked through the cave I could sort of feel the weight of the earth around us. The walls were both smooth and rough and the ground was littered with stones of all sizes. It was fun to imagine what it was like when the caves were formed.

We turned off our flashlights a couple of times and the dark was total. Pitch black takes on a deeper meaning when it happens to you inside a cave where the closest light is about three quarters of a mile away.

We made it to the end of the "easy" cave. It was fun going all the way to the end where it tapered down to nothing. Here I am in the "Meatball" at the end of the line.

Then Scott wanted to do the "difficult" cave. This involves following a winding and hard to find path over 27 piles of sharp edged pumice stone. He had a massive blister on the bottom of his foot and I was not up for climbing the 8ft cliff at the other end. He insisted we try and so in we went......

And....We got a little lost. Scott was convinced he was going the right way even though the path was gone and all that we could see was this little slit in the rocks. I tried to explain that it couldn't be the way since it was not mentioned in the guide. He insisted on investigating and got completely soaked in the process. It was not the right way.

So...... We headed back to the mouth of the cave.

I was sort of relieved when we got back to where the light was coming in.

Overall, I was pretty impressed and I would love to come back some day. It would be pretty cool to go climbing around with a group of people.

At the end of the day I can honestly say....

We had a lot of fun!

Erin sent me a Kerwin look-alike necklace! As you can see Kerwin was very excited about it. :)
I often wonder what is running through his little acorn of a brain.

I wonder if he had a stomach ache afterwards?

So, while we were at the falls we saw this!

Stupid people leaving their food (and a wedding cake at that) unattended in the forest. What did they expect would happen?

We watched and waited to see...

This little guy was running across the picnic tables, saw the cake and did a double take. Then he jumped down and ran around the table just to make sure that it wasn't a trick. After he made sure the coast was clear he dove for the frosting. He was just going to town too!

Afer I snapped a couple of pictures I tried to shoo him away. He was not going to give up the cake without a fight. Ihad to almost touch him before he got scared enough to run!

However, he didn't go very far away. In fact, he was just waiting for me to turn my back. Someone from the wedding party returned just in time to catch him in the act a second time.

Snoqualmie Falls

We went on a little hike today at Snoqualmie Falls. The falls were so full that spray was going everywhere!

As you can see we enjoyed ourselves. :)