How I Lucked Out and Got on the Crystal Ice Cave Tour!

Tule Lake, CA → Lava Beds NM → Medford, OR
149.0 mi (239.7 km)

More 2016 Adventures

It’s incredible, everyone!

When I booked my trip to the far northeast corner of California, I’d picked this weekend in the hope that I might score a spot on the Crystal Ice Cave Tour in Lava Beds National Monument. The website warned me that it was super competitive, so I made sure to call right at 8:30, two weeks in advance when reservations opened. By 8:31, all six spots had been filled, and I was out of luck.

Or so I thought! Right after I wrapped up shooting videos at Camp Tule Lake, Ranger Alison called me with an offer. Not only had someone canceled on the Crystal Cave tour, but so had all three people on the wait list! Could it have been the blizzard? I don’t know! All I know for sure is that the winds of fortune are blowing in my favor today! I hurried as quickly as I could into the Lava Beds!

There hasn’t been an eruption here in a long time, but even with snow flying all around, the landscape going into the monument still looks like it’s been heat blasted! I paused at the Devil’s Homestead to marvel at the fiery destruction from ages past, and it surprised me how sparsely the plants were still growing here. I guess those that are growing here are pretty darn tough!

The wind really started to pick up as I checked in at the visitor center and got my screening for white-nose syndrome. For your super-important information, you have to get checked for white nose syndrome before going in any caves west of South Dakota! It’s a fungus that’s been killing bats by the millions on the east coast, and it would be a huge shame if it got into these caves too!

I passed the screening (Whoo hoo!) and had an hour to spend before the tour started. The rangers recommended Mushpot Cave, which was right by the visitor center. This cave is named after a mossy pit where lava used to bubble up in hotter times! It was also a refuge for ferns and other cave lifeforms during these harsh winter days!

I wandered a little further down the cave, marveling at the signs telling me about life in the twilight zone and the peeling wall layers. Most of the caves here in the monument were formed when flowing rivers of lava started to cool around the edges and form tunnels! The park is full of them! Over 80 new caves were discovered last year alone!

At 12:45, I checked in for the Crystal Cave tour. I wasn’t able to get a headlamp, since none of them would fit on my head anyway, so I got a stern warning from Ranger Jeanette to stay within someone else’s light. Not a problem!

The rangers led a caravan of the nine of us to the Catacombs Cave parking lot, but long before the entrance of that cave, we were directed over the fence (I felt like such a rebel) and into a pit off the side of the trail, where the snow drifted down among the mossy rocks in a way that looked like we were in a snow globe!

Once Ranger Jeanette opened the gate, we climbed down a ladder and slid down an icy slope into the first slushy room. It was a steady 22 degrees down here, though at its hottest, the cave rarely goes above 40º. For a short while, it was hotter, because a fellow named Jim Howard liked to brew moonshine whiskey down here, but he was kicked out as preservation efforts got started.

Another Howard, first name Judson, painted names on many of the caves here in the park. The words behind me in this photo have not been touched up. They are the same words that J.D. Howard painted in the early 1900s! The sign is right in front of an abyss, which is one of the reasons only small groups can come down here!

The cave was pretty rocky for the most part, and the ice was sparse, though in one rocky room, we got to learn about how early cave explorers had to navigate these treacherous routes with nothing but a dim carbide lamp, which mixed water with calcium carbide powder to make light! As we descended further into the cave, which is beneath two other caves, the origin of this cave’s name became clear.

Before freezing down here, the water filters through many feet of solid rock, which makes it incredibly clear! That left brilliant, shining monuments of all sizes scattered throughout the lower level of this cave. By the time we reached the final room, I was in total awe! It was as if we had stumbled upon some secret room of an ancient ice princess! The floor of the cave was pure ice with ice curtains and “statues” all around! In the silence of the cave, time didn’t seem to pass at all, and it surprised everyone when Ranger Jeanette announced that our three hours were up!

We climbed back out of the cave, wondering whether the ice down there would survive the changing climate or if, one day, it would become a subterranean lake that no one would be able to visit. I felt very lucky to be in this place at this time, on a cosmic level and not just a luck-of-the-draw level.

The blizzard had subsided outside, which meant that, after saying “Farewell” to my travel companions, I had just enough space between storms and sunset to tackle Schonchin Butte for a great view!

The trail up Schonchin Butte (named after Old Schonchin, chief of the Modoc who negotiated the treaty that put his tribe on a reservation with the Klamath) was less than a mile long but pretty steep! Since I was in a hurry, I huffed and puffed my way up, gazing through blurred vision at the distant buttes and cinder cones that make up the volcanic landscape!

From up here, I could see all the way to Tule Lake—the lake and the town—as well as the front of the next blizzard heading my way! I bumped up the pace!

At the top of the butte sits an old fire lookout, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 30’s! Here, there are places to sit and gaze in all directions, out of the biting wind, with only tiny flecks of snow swirling through the air!

I walked around the lookout, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the solitude when I spotted an approaching storm front:

I hustled as fast as I could to get back down before the next blizzard bore down upon me. Blizzards here are especially cold! Even with the weather dictating my time in this amazing monument, I count this trip as an astonishing success! This was truly a trip of a lifetime in a place that very few have heard about! The moral of the story: even if the odds are stacked against you, it never hurts to try just one more time!

See you later!