Into a Cave, and Lied to Again!

Last year, when we visited a cave in Alabama, we were assured by out guide, Kerri, that her cave "will tell you the truth that other caves won't tell you:  other caves will say that they were formed millions of years ago, but the truth is that all caves were formed 4000 years ago during Noah's Flood."  Well, Kerri's prediction came true today in Oregon Caves; we WERE in fact told that this cave, Rachel's cave, was formed millions of years ago.  Rachel didn't actually say that; she just implied it in her discussion of how stalctites and stalagmites are formed.  She pointed out a 7.5' column, each 1" of which took between 100 and 1000 years to form.  The lower end of that math adds up to 90,000 years; the upper end 9,000,000.  And that presumes that the column started forming day one of the cave's existence.  Rachel also blasphemously told us that two sets of bones have been found inside the cave; the oldest known set of jaguar bones (38,000 years old) and a set of black bear bones that is so old that its age exceeds carbon dating.  That means (according to Mary Hudson at the Florida Field Museum of Natural History: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/aucilla10_1/Carbon.htm) that the bear bones are more than about 9 or 10 carbon 14 half-lives, or more than 50,000 years old.

Kerri's explanation for the age of cave formations, by the way, is that they grow much faster than other caves say they do.  I have also heard proffered the notion that things on the earth that "appear to be" older than the Biblical version allows for are actually illusions set for us by the devil to trap the unsuspecting and unbelieving into accepting untruth.  I imagine, then, that the devil amused himself one afternoon with some quick handiwork in Oregon, placing little traps for us in the form of bear and jaguar bones. Kerri the cave girl would no doubt be gratified to know that her claim was so soon validated.

I imagine, then, that the devil amused himself one afternoon with some quick handiwork in Oregon...

The clash between religion and science notwithstanding (or perhaps "inclusive" would be a better word there!), this was a lovely vacation day.  We drove up the California coast from Klamath this morning in the dense fog, getting just a little glimpse of the ocean here and there when we got down low enough to the water.  I love the ocean, and it would have been great to see more of it, but that's the way of it on the coast of California in July--come back in October, or in the afternoon, if you want to see something different!  We bought gas just over the Oregon border for only $4.25 per gallon (5 cents off for cash)--and imagine the flexibility of the world when you can say "'only' $4.25 per gallon."  That's about what we paid for gas the first time we drove in England, in 1992, and yesterday's gas in California was $4.55.  Go figure.

We drove out to Oregon Cave National Monument and were reminded that the difference between a National Monument and a National Park is that the former comes into existence by Presidential decree, while the latter requires an act of congress.  We learned that caves that are 4,000 feet up in the air are significantly colder than caves that inhabit much lower climes; this one is 44 degrees fahrenheit year-round, the chilliest tour we've taken underground.  We were also reminded of the incomprehensible workings of the human mind--and not just through the reason-religion debate.  When we bought the tickets, we were told very clearly that this cave tour is classified as a moderately difficult hike, with something like 529 stairs, most of them wet, tight corridors, and passages requiring tour participants to bend over low.  The ranger clearly stated that the tour is not recommended for people with back, heart, or knee problems.  And yet among our 16 members were two who should, by these warnings, have been deterred:  a very overweight man in sandals and his companion, a woman who, it turns out, has had both knees replaced and cannot really walk well on flat ground.  Neither had a sweater.

One is tempted to call them I-dots of the highest order, but the situation seems somehow less obvious than that.  Neither seemed driven by a surpassing passion for caves; they had no cameras and asked no questions.   Both made the decision NOT to leave the cave at the halfway point where we were warned that from there on out the walk would get a lot more strenuous--we had covered by then about 20% of the total steps.  Both made the decision to ascend the 90 optional stairs up and back down late in the tour when the woman was clearly struggling with every step.  Such folly seems to me to speak of something bigger than mere failure to comprehend what was involved; they seemed to me to be driven by vanity, or hubris--or perhaps, more basically, a flat refusal to believe that they cannot do what others can do.  It made me ponder how many times in the history of man that drama has been enacted--the simple refusal to accept that reality won't change, just because we stop beleiving in it.  Here, on a personal level, we see the politics of the world enacted--surely we are in Iraq for similar reasons.

When last we saw this couple, they were sitting on a bench about 20 yards down the hill outside the cave's exit; faced with a steep dowhill descent for about 2/10 of a mile, they gave up, at least for a little while, steep downhill descents being harder on the knees than steep uphill climbs ever are.  I have no idea how long it took them to get down, or if they got down, or if they had to send for help, or if they are stubbornly sitting there still, waiting for an outcome that they can call a victory.

One other little human drama was enacted for us outside Oregon Cave:  little three-year old Rebecca (at least, she looked about three to me), when I first encountered here, was engaged in lusty squalling over her spilled cup of trail mix, which she had managed to strew in an impressively widespread sweep of M&Ms, peanuts and raisins across the driveway in front of the gift shop.  It turns out, I learned from eavesdropping shamelessly on Rebecca's mother who pronounced to her family, awaiting their arrival across the courtyard, that this was Rebecca's THIRD cup of trail mix, and the THIRD cup she had dropped.  Rebecca's mother proclaimed to the crowd that "I need two more dollars; she dropped another one; you can follow Rebecca's trail by following the trail mix" and off she set, presumably, to buy cup number four.  I recounted this little vignette to Tim when he got back from a hike up the hillside, finishing with the remark that "I would have stopped buying after one spilled cup--no way I spend eight bucks on trail mix for a kid who can't hang onto it," which remark was uttered simultaneously with Tim's "that's no accident; that's attention-getting behavior if ever there was any."  Clearly we are unsympathetic old fogies, but our take was that Little Rebecca had mother right where she wanted her.  Heaven help Little Rebecca's future teachers.  At least the squirrels were happy.

Tim and I, shortly thereafter, embarked on a more light-hearted adventure.  Off we went from Oregon Cave NM to head to Klamath Falls where we would spend the night.  Rather than take the long, long, LONG route back out to the main road, then up through Grants Pass and around hither and yon, we braved the short cut over the mountain on a Forestry Department Fire Road.  The road is on the map, but only just barely and, as it turns out, its many branches and off-shoots are not.  One gets to a T on this road from time to time, and one is left to simply guess which way to go.  But it was a beautiful afternoon and a beautiful drive, despite the gravel surface, and there wasn't another car in sight (except, eventually, one we found parked somewhere in the middle of nowhere without a person to be seen or heard in the vicinity.  It had Virginia plates.  How peculiar it seemed that two sets of tourists from Virginia should be the only people apparently frequenting the entire mountainside 3000 miles from home).  There were lots of butterflies we had never seen before, and some truly spectacular views out through the Siskiyou Mountains and over what was, we think, the Applegate Valley (this deduction made from the fire stations we encountered when we got down into the valley itself--Applegate Valley Station 3, Applegate Valley Station 4, and so on).  The valley, too, was very beautiful--old farms with picturesque barns.  The sun shone, the temperature was about 80 degrees, and, except for the stretch through Ashland, we barely saw another car during the entire 4 hour trip.  Just about as good as it gets.

Wildlife du jour:

Fewer swallows than yesterday, as someone had come around during the night or (more likely) the wee hours and bashed down all the nests, including the ones with babies in them.  The babies were fully feathered, so it is to be hoped that they were able to fly away, but the act still seemed incomprehensibly and needlessly cruel.  Granted that it seems reasonable not to want a swallow's nest immediately above the door to your restaurant, where right below, and in the center of the entryway, a pile of poop must necessarily amass--some of which must certainly land on customers; but why wait until the nest is full of nearly-fledged chicks?  Why not knock it down before it is even fully built and chase the parents off to somewhere more congenial?  This act is similarly incomprehensible to me as the act of clear-cutting 96% of the old-growth redwood forests.  I look at a tree that is 22' in diameter and would take me the better part of a solid minute even to walk around, and I cannot conceive of having enough nerve to think I have any business trying to cut it down.  I cannot imagine my place in the universe being so important that something 2000 years old exists solely for my use in making decks or doors or souvenir ashtrays.

Requisite collection of Turkey Vultures.

Quite a few Ravens and Crows--we could even tell them apart.

A Stellar's Jay with what appeared to be a pebble in its beak.  What he was going to do with it is anybody's guess.

A goldfinch

and a bunch of other flying things too numerous and too far away to recognize, especially since neither Tim nor I had the foresight to bring a pair of binoculars.  This, too, is incomprehensible, in a day of incomprehensibilities:  I managed to schelp the binocs all the way to Norway, where they came in quite handy, and yet I never even thought of it for a vacation that was a lot more outdoors than that one was.  Go figure.

A good dozen Clodius Parnassus--never seen before by us.  Verified by photograph, and abundant on top of the mountain.

Half-a-dozen or so Lorquin's Admirals, easily distinguished from yesterday's California Sisters and verified by photographic proof--these butterflies are awfully cooperative!

Three swallowtails, so pail as to seem white, but not recognizably Zebra Swallowtail, which doesn't appear to occur in Oregon anyway.  Tentatively:  Pale Swallowtail, but we aren't going out on any limbs with that one.

Golden Hairstreak, also verified by some surprisingly good photos, given the equipment at hand.  Never before seen by us.

Tailed Copper, ditto on the photos and ditto on the life-list.

A Checkerspot, mostly red and black, that we have identified as Edith's Checkerspot, by default, as the only red and black checkerspot on the lists we found of OR butterflies.  But that bugger flew by pretty fast, and we only saw one and never had a chance with a camera, so don't take that ID to the bank.

A boatload of some sort of Fritillary.  We have photos, but we wore out before wading through all the possibilities.  The little so-and-so's all look alike. We will take it on again tomorrow.

Some blues (didn't even try)

Some sort of little brownish-white something or other of which I have a photo but can't even narrow down.  Blue?  Sulphur?  Hairstreak?  Moth?  It's a mystery!

Oh, and two skippers, one orange and one brown, about which we will say only that they are not the same skippers we saw and couldn't identify yesterday.  Say we're up to u skipper spp:  four.  The list grows on.

A smattering of mammals--some squirrels (maybe two kinds, neither one smarter than those in Virginia, if their run-out-in-the-road-in-front-of-traffic behavior is anything to go by), a handful of chipmunks zippity-zooming by with their tails straight up in the air (plenty of sense there; they head OUT of the road as cars approach), and five black-tailed deer, including three little bitty spotted ones, fenced in, apparently, in a school yard. One up by the swingset.  How did they get in there?

There were lots of cows, pretty many horses (Klamath Falls has signs up: "No Horses Allowed on the Sidewalk"--I am NOT making this up), a few sheep and fewer goats.

Today's blonde Chihuahua was a three-month old puppy whose head looked normal but the rest of which looked like it just came out of the dryer.

And one indeterminate dog who took umbrage at the fact that we could go zippity-zooming by on the road, while he was stuck on the side in the back of a trailer-towing pick-up truck, and took the opportunity to express his displeasure with a flurry of barking as we flashed past.  He was the noisiest thing in the peaceful afternoon, but his ire could not disrupt the sunlit sense of well-being.

We finished off the day with less food than we had at breakfast (you should have SEEN the mountain of pancakes under blackberries Tim was served at the Forest Cafe this morning--did I mention the plastic flowers on the ceiling?), this meal at the Black Bear Diner next door to the Motel 6.  The waitress was wearing a t-shirt that said "My Pie," which we considered buying for Dad (a clean one, not the one off her back).  We did NOT consider buying the pie, which was advertised as a single serving but which was ENORMOUS--came in a large bowl and must have weighed a pound and a half.  The nirvana of pie-lovers everywhere.

And that, as they say, is that.  Tomorrow, Lava Beds.  What follies and wonders with that junket bring?