A Land Of Turmoil: Visiting Lava Beds National Monument
The decision to visit Lava Beds National Monument was the very definition of an unplanned spur of the moment detour. We had originally thought it would be too far off our route if we wanted to see Mount Shasta so we had mentally filed it away in the "not today, someday” folder of our brains.
But the next morning as we headed for the California border we stumbled across an alternate route that would allow us to visit both the Lava Beds National Monument and Mount Shasta, albeit in a very roundabout way.
We had spent the night before at our first rest stop which would mark our last night in Oregon. After inquiring at the welcome center we learned that according to Oregon law, we were allowed to “rest” for up to 12 hours which we planned to take full advantage of.
The lot was mostly empty when we arrived and we parked the RamHawk in one of the furthest parking spots hoping it would allow for some level of privacy. Spoiler alert: It didn’t.
We used the picnic tables close by to cook Fenix his signature dinner of ramen noodles with the Jet Boil while Atlas had chicken and star soup with a side of sardines, because naturally. Nick and I scarfed down cold tuna wrapped in a tortilla shell, a thru hiker special or so I’m told.
As the night wore on, cars and trucks continued to arrive, slowly filling in the parking spots beside us. So much for privacy. But it was a free place to park overnight, the bathrooms were clean and it was close proximity to the California border so we couldn’t complain too much.
After one last trip to the bathroom, we discovered a very unexpected new neighbor that had arrived as the sun slowly melted into twilight.
Owls. Two of them.
They had settled into the tree tops just across the crowded parking lot and were hooting softly back and forth to each other, no doubt discussing dinner plans for the long night to come.
Seeing those owls in a random parking lot at the bottom of Oregon was just one of the many, many reasons we wanted this life of freedom and adventure. I fully believe that humans weren’t meant to live sedentary lives and in my mind, this unexpected delight only furthered the confirmation of that opinion.
It was such a treat to see not one but two owls in such an unexpected place and we felt that satisfying burst of inspiration and appreciation for getting to witness the magic first hand.
We walked around for a time, listening as the owls conversed in near darkness before returning to the RamHawk for the night.
We had thought the rest stop was busy before crawling into bed but soon discovered that it wouldn’t reach peak capacity until the wee small hours of the morning when the bulk of the semi truck drivers started to arrive, looking for some much needed rest. Right next to us.
Which wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the fact that they left their engines running. ALL. NIGHT. LONG.
The sound of their arrival was a bit of a shock at first with all the squeaking, hissing and rumbling that woke us out of a sound sleep bringing forth a burst of annoyance because hello, we’re trying to sleep here! Rude.
It wasn’t just the noise though, it was also the fact of what that idling engine was pumping out into the world around us. Double rude.
Eventually the sound of the idling engine became a lullaby of sorts, our own personal white noise pollution machine and we were able to drift back to sleep despite the noise.
The next morning as we drove towards the border, we passed a sign in front of a gas station that stated it was our final chance to pay Oregon fuel prices. A quick search confirmed that fact and so we found ourselves crossing into California only to immediately turn around to cross back into Oregon so we could take advantage of the lower fuel costs while we still had the chance.
With the new route locked in, we crossed back into California for the second time in as many minutes and turned to the east onto the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, also known as highway 161.
Located in the small town of Tulelake which is about 20 minutes from the Oregon border, Lava Beds National Monument offers visitors the ultimate high desert adventure, if you’re bold enough to explore it that is.
It has the largest total area covered by a volcano in the entire Cascade Range and it was eruptions from the Medicine Lake shield volcano over the course of the last half a million years that ultimately created the wildly rugged landscape that lay before us.
An endless field of lava rock jutted out between the tall yellow prairie grass which stretched onward in all directions, somehow surviving despite the extremely dry conditions. We saw evidence of a recent wildfire with numerous burnt trees standing out in the distance, defiant until the very end.
The land itself was a metaphor of sorts, a fierce kind of beauty that vividly reflected the struggles in the not so distant past, both geologically and historically speaking.
After diving a little deeper into the history of the area, we learned that Lava Beds National Monument had a dark past indeed.
It was home to the Modoc Indian War of 1872-73 which was fought over land after settlers decided that the ancestral land of the Modoc people was “needed” for farming and grazing. They tried forcing the tribes onto reservations but the Modoc people would not go quietly, and rightly so.
Many battles were fought along the shores of Tule Lake where ancient lava flows shaped the rugged, uneven terrain, creating a natural lava fortress of sorts, which would later become known as Captain Jack’s Stronghold.
The stronghold was named after the Modoc chief after a group of less than sixty Modoc warriors and their families held off some six hundred plus soldiers for nearly eight months. They were so well protected that in the time the war was fought, the Modoc only lost six of their men while the U.S Army lost more than forty, including General Canby who was only U.S. General to die in a Native American War.
Stronghold indeed.
When the war finally ended, Captain Jack and five of his warriors were captured, tried and hung as the only Native American war criminals in American history. The remaining Modoc survivors, all 153 of them, were rounded up and loaded into railroad cattle cars, something they had never seen before and after a 2,000 mile journey in mid November with nothing but a few blankets and the clothes on their backs they arrived at the Quapaw Agency in Kansas under the supervision of Agent Jones.
It would be almost a year before government funds for food, clothing, or medical supplies became available so that first winter at the Quapaw Agency was a rough one to say the very least. In June of 1873 they were relocated once again, this time to a 4,000 acre reservation in Oklahoma that was purchased from the Eastern Shawnee.
Over the course of the next six years, the Modoc people would continue their struggle as they battled sicknesses and many other hardships due to the corrupt administration of Agent Jones. By 1879 their population had been reduced to just ninety nine.
In the end, the federal government got the land after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in the war to “forcibly remove” the Modoc people, far more than they would have spent if they had just peacefully accepted the treaty the Modoc Nation presented and just bought the small plot of land over which the war was fought. Think of all the lives that would have saved too.
It’s such a sad story that ended with too much death, all for a small piece of ground.
It really was a land of turmoil.
Even all these years later, some of the battlefields are still present including the historic Captain Jack’s stronghold which, unfortunately, we didn’t get to see on this trip.
The National Monument is also home to a whole lot of lava tube caves, about 800 of them to be more precise. After a trip to the visitor center, we learned that those caves are home to some 16 different species of bats, the most common being the Townsend's Big-eared Bat, named for the unusually large ears that average a third of their body length.
Big eared bat indeed!
Sadly, we also learned that millions of cave dwelling bats around the world, including the 16 species in Lava Beds National Monument are facing a serious threat from a fatal disease called white-nose syndrome which is caused by a fungus.
White-nose syndrome was first discovered in New York in the winter of 2006 and since then it has spread to more than half of the United States, killing millions of bats, sometimes entire colonies in the process. There is no known cure.
The ranger told us that humans can unknowingly spread the fungus from one location to another if they come into contact with it. So if the fungus gets on shoes, clothing, or caving gear it can easily be transported to other bat habitats. Then if bats come into contact with those areas, they become infected themselves and in turn, can infect entire colonies.
I mean, how sad is that? Little bat families gone, just like that.
When I was about six years old my parents took me and my four siblings on a two week long road trip going from National Park to National Park, which, come to think of it is probably why I love to travel now. Thanks Mom and Dad! Anyway, it was somewhere in the wilds of Nevada that I had my first encounter with a bat. It was small, brown and very, very dead. Petrified actually.
So like an uneducated child I picked that dead bat up to show my Mom and like an uneducated adult, she let me. Now, to be fair, that was far from the first time I had found, picked up or captured some unsuspecting critter (furry or otherwise) to take home, so to my Mom, it was just another day in the life trying to raise a wild child.
Then, together, like the pair of uneducated tourists we were, we took that little bat and all its petrified glory to a ranger at the local visitor center to hopefully become educated.
And educate us they did!
We learned about the species (it was a little brown bat) how it lived and how it likely died. We even learned about the anatomy and how the little furry bodied mammal flew with its leather like wings using sonar to find dinner. Contrary to popular belief, bats are NOT blind, in fact, they have excellent night vision.
And yes, thankfully this was before White-nose syndrome was officially discovered. Things were different back then. It was before the age of the internet, before we had pocket guide books in the form of apps and long before the world would have us believe that everything was out to kill us. Yes, I am that old.
Though, if I’m being honest, we should have known better than to handle a dead bat, petrified or not. Still, I’ll never forget what we learned that day about a little brown bat that had likely been dead for years.
My Mom bought me a plastic build your own bat anatomy kit from the gift shop at the National Park and the book Stellaluna which she read to me frequently over the next few years because I was obsessed with all things bats.
That was just me though. Growing up I was absolutely animal crazy (still am) and if you could think of a critter, it was likely I owned one, wanted one or at least held one. Willing or not, alive or petrified. Nothing was too creepy, too crawly, too slimy, too scaley or too furry for me and by the time I had enough sense to know better, I had been scratched or bitten by just about all of them. But I didn’t care. Big or small, I loved them all.
I once had a gerbil that my Dad affectionately dubbed “Megan Muncher” because like the name implied, she wasn’t overly fond of the friendship I so eagerly offered (nay, demanded!) and took half my finger tip off with her big gerbil teeth in response. But that’s a story for another time.
Anyway, I know some people can be grossed out by bats but they really are an important part of the ecosystem so it’s important to do what we can to help keep them safe.
Here are a few things you can do to help!
Stay out of closed caves.
They’re closed for a reason! One of the many reasons officials might close caves is to protect hibernating bats and/or family colonies during breeding season.
Cleaning shoes, clothes and gear before and after entering caves.
For low risk visitors, some places like the Lava Beds National Monument have decontamination stations set up outside their visitor centers which can help limit the spread of the fungus.
Report any dead/injured bats to park personnel.
This really should go without saying, but to protect yourself and the wildlife around you, don’t touch, approach or pick up a bat, dead or alive! White-nose syndrome doesn’t effect humans but bats and other wildlife can be carriers of other diseases like rabies. Yikes. They put the WILD in wild animals and while they might be cute and fluffy, they are still WILD, so always, ALWAYS give them space.
Educate yourself!
Knowledge is power! If you want to learn more about White-nose syndrome, visit https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/ to get involved!
With a cave permit and map in hand, we left the visitor center in search of Mushpot Cave which was listed as one of the "least challenging caves" in the park and was recommended for us since we’d never been caving before. It was also very close to the visitor center so it only made sense to start there first.
It was the only cave in the park that had a lit pathway which would make exploration with two little kids that much easier but despite being well lit, they still recommend bringing extra lights down with us and to always, always watch our heads.
To Atlas’s delight, we found ourselves climbing down ladder like stairs to the cave entrance where we stepped forward, descending into the depths of the earth one slow step at a time before being swallowed whole.
It’s such an odd feeling, going underground, and it takes awhile for your body to adjust to the strange new environment. We weren’t made for the dark.
The atmosphere was an eerie kind of silent, deliberate and unyielding. Thick rock walls surrounded us, trapping our noise within a tight bubble, accentuating every sound of our careful footsteps as we waited for our eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. It was a deafening kind of quiet.
The air was musty and damp, smelling of wet rock and earth and the temperature was significantly colder than it had been above ground and it only dropped the further we ventured onward.
The path was softly illuminated by a series of small, strategically placed spotlights as well as rope lighting which lined either side of the paved trail in places. We were able to walk upright mostly, but there were a few sections where Nick and I had to duck down much to the boys delight. The sight of us walking so hunched over was apparently quite funny to them and they walked back and fourth boasting loudly that they fit through perfectly and didn't have to duck.
At just 770 feet long, it didn’t take long to reach the end of Mushpot Cave where we turned around, following the same lit pathway back to the entrance.
We loaded into the RamHawk to take the short drive to our second and final cave. Named for the day it was discovered in 1933, Valentine Cave had a very large main passage with smooth floors and walls that they say was created by flows of lava an estimated 10,500 to 65,000 years ago.
Is that all?
A short flight of steps brought us down to the cave entrance where it split off into two different directions.
Which way to go? Spoiler alert, we went right.
But as it turned out, it didn't really matter because the two tunnels met up very quickly, forming into one long tunnel that could have potentially lead us a whopping 1,635 feet through absolute darkness.
The ranger told us there were technical levels to each of the caves and that this one was another of the "least challenging caves" despite how dark it was.
For some, you only need a light. Others you need a light and a back up light. Then there are the ones that require a light, a backup light and a backup for your backup light. Those often require a helmet and knee pads too because of how dark, and tight things can get.
Um, no thanks.
Needless to say, equipped with only two cell phone lights and one small flashlight, we didn't venture too deep or stay too long. We let the boys decide when to turn back and they yielded far deeper than I would have had it been my choice.
Feeling especially thankful for sunlight, we emerged back into the light of day and found a cute little lizard waiting for us.
We’d been exploring the park several hours by that point and we had many miles to go if we wanted to reach Mount Shasta for the night so after snapping a bunch of pictures, we loaded up once again and turned toward the alternate route we had planned out earlier that morning.
Continuing on the Lava Beds National Monument Road, we turned onto US Forest Service Road 97 and headed west toward Highway 89 which would eventually lead us to Mount Shasta.
The drive was beautiful and in the heat of the day the trees smelled absolutely amazing. What I wouldn’t give to be able to bottle that delicious forest smell but since that wasn’t a possibility, we made do by rolling down all the windows and letting the delightful aroma blast into the truck cab as we drove on towards our next adventure.
