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| Looking into Dead Horse Cave's entrance pit. That's Jason sliding down in there. It's small, but it opens up into a 3/4 mile long maze of lava tunnels. | This ice formation looked like frozen grass. Jason was filming and forgot to get a close up. | Dead Horse Cave's upper entrance. The cave stays about 55 degrees, so the warm air flow keeps the snow melted out to 15 feet or so from the hole. | Jason decided it was too muddy to crawl into the small tunnel. He's holding an Underwater Kinetics UK-1200 15 watt halogen diving light. It's a very bright unit! |
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| Hunters heading for their winter elk camp. Hope he has a good heater in that trailer! | This is a large lava stalagmite in JaR Cave. This cave got it's name from Joe and Robert. They found and named it, and we surveyed it in 1986. I worked with Joe for 10 years before he moved to Seattle. | Delicate lava stalactites hang from the ceiling here, and have about the size and fragility of pencils. There are very rare, and were formed when molton lava dripped down during the cave's forming. That's me in the photo. | A better view of the little stalactites. This is one reason caves are so well protected. It wouldn't take vandals but ten minutes to destroy them all. This cave's location is known only to members of the National Speleological Society |
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| We were in there so long it was dark as the inside of a cow when we came out again. Not like we didn't already have a few lights to navigate the woods with. | We were surprised to see we were underground for over three hours. It's easy to lose track of time in a cave. | Another cave, and the last one for the evening. Notice the large icicles hanging down. That's me again in the photo. | It was snowing hard while we were underground! The old 'Burb was getting a bit sluggish about tracking those curves! We had a 12 volt coffee pot brewing up a batch while we drove. Mmmmm. |
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| Typical guys with no women along on the trip... what a mess!! | A quick 'Burb check... yup, it's still there. Not much crime in Trout Lake. | This is where my wet boots spent the night... on top of the heater! Great! Now they're stiff as boards. | Jason in his flap-cap. we found our "spider" cave, and he wasn't excited about getting any in his hair... or down his neck. |
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| Standing outside the entrance of Slime Cave, where the Opiliones reside. We are gathering the nerve to go inside. :-) | Looking back out at the falling snow. Notice the ice columns in on the floor. | A few individuals at the edge of a patch of Opiliones. They are otherwise known as "daddy longlegs" or "harvestman" | The "hair" is their legs. they seem to pack in for warmth, and are at least 5,000 to the square foot. |
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| A close up of a couple of them.. | A little thinner here. Each white body has eight legs. They are arachnids, but not actually spiders. Spiders have two segment bodies, Opiliones have only one segment. | Patches of "hair" are everywhere in this part of the cave. | They went nuts when my warm hand got close!! In the next video frame, my hand is gone! (I yanked it back!) The whole patch started to gyrate. Yikes! |
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| This large wall section has at least a quarter of a million of the creatures in several large patches. | This was looking straight up a crack in the ceiling. To top it off, my body heat was making them really active!! The video is wild in this piece!! | Panned back a bit... the "soft" look of the ceiling crack is because tens of thousands of the creatures are in there! I was half expecting about 5,000 to drop on my face!! | Me, standing next to my 'Burb. I'm 6' 6" and weight 295 lbs. The Suburban is bigger than it looks. :-) |
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| Snowing hard, and we're at the 3,050 foot level. | On the way home, Mill Creek Falls. | Jason standing on a precipice with a 250 foot shear drop. | The sun over Klickitat canyon. Such as it was. |
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| Klickitat canyon buried in clouds. | Another view of the canyon. | Heading down into the thick gloom. | Getting lower. There were power lines disappearing into the white mass here. |
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| Oh boy... here we go! Where we come out, nobody knows! | Heading into the bustling little town of Bickleton. | Can't be all bad... there's a nice 1950's 'Burb! | One last view of Bickleton. Notice the stores with the false fronts. |
Total trip mileage: 650.4
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We had originally found this cave back in the late 1990's, and there was "living hair" in it during the very late Fall. I'd always wanted to check back later, but never did. A few years back, Rick, (another NSS member) went in during summer and didn't see a single Opilione. I'd forgot where it was until Thanksgiving weekend, and we went up a few roads in the snow looking for landmarks, and managed to find it again. The USFS and the USDA F&W is interested now, as to why this particular cave has such numbers of the arachnids in the winter months, yet no other lava tube in the area has any at all. Real TV sent me a check. It will air sometime around April and maybe as late as May. The associate producer said she would keep me informed as to exactly when it will air, and I will post the air time when I know for sure. The Real TV segment's theme is along the lines of "Creepy, but fun." You can read more information about the Opiliones here. |
Page last updated: Saturday February 3, 2001