COUGAR — The Boy Scouts of Troop 106 couldn’t have asked for a better guide for Lake Cave than Bill Reese. Reese, who grew up in the upper Lewis River Valley, was in the Scout troop that discovered the cave in 1958.
Reese, 75, who now lives in St. Helens, Ore., didn’t walk and crawl through the 4,597-foot-long cave with the Scouts in this summer, but he provided plenty of history and geology lessons.
Because Reese is Troop 106’s former Scoutmaster, the troop specializes in cave exploring on the south side of Mount St. Helens. In June, they visited Ole’s Cave one day and Lake Cave the next. Both are similar to the much-visited Ape Cave but aren’t as well known.
In addition to the Scouts, only two other cavers visited Lake Cave that afternoon; hundreds typically traipse through Ape Cave on weekend days.
All three caves are thought to be part of the result of the same lava flow, and may well be connected by corridors that have filled in with sand.
Entering Lake Cave isn’t a problem, but a few yards into it there’s a 10-foot drop where someone has anchored a sturdy ladder. One of the younger Scouts didn’t want to make the backwards descent, but with many helping hands above and below, the other 16 scouts and two leaders got down fine.
Farther inside the cave are a few places where butt-sliding down rocks is required, and there’s one short hands-and-knees crawl. However, much of the cave’s floor is soft sand, and walking isn’t difficult.
It’s a subterranean spectacle. The rock walls glisten in shades of red, gray and green. In places, the cave ceiling towers as much as 30 feet overhead. Here and there are smooth globs of lava that contrast with the rough surfaces.
A side passage lured several Scouts to explore. After several minutes, 12-year-old Isaiah Sanders, who was wearing a helmet to protect his head from sharp rocks, emerged breathlessly. “It kept going but it was really low,” he said.
“We could see the petrified wood and the branches!” Isaiah said.
Later, Reese said he and his brothers had brought out wood from a charred tree and had it carbon-dated. The wood was 2,000 years old, which established the time when a lava flow created the cave, he said.
After an hour or so of walking, the group reached the lower end of the cave, which in the rainy season holds a small “lake.” Unlike with Ole’s Cave and Ape Cave, there’s no exit at this point, so cavers need to retrace their steps.
Before turning around, the Scouts extinguished all their headlamps and flashlights for a moment of true darkness — then one of them ignited a match, eliciting “oohs” and “aahs.”
Back in the daylight, Isaiah said taking the side passage was his favorite part of the cave.
Several Scouts said Lake Cave was their favorite spelunking adventure to date.
“We got to explore more,” said Nathaniel Richter, 12. “There was more you could see, like the dried obsidian lava.”
It was the third cave visited for Spencer Lyons, 11. Lake Cave was his favorite “because I liked having all these rocks to climb over,” he said. And crawl under as he and his fellow Scouts continued the tradition Reese’s equally eager troop started 57 years ago.
Boy Scouts discovered and explored caves
The eruption that produced lava tubes on the south side of Mount St. Helens occurred 2,000 years ago. At the end of the eruption, molten lava inside the tubes drained away, leaving a hollow space. Big rocks tumbled out of the cave ceilings as it cooled, but rock fall doesn’t threaten explorers today.
Ole Peterson, a colorful character who lived near what is now the bridge over the Swift Dam Power Canal, discovered Ole’s Cave in 1895, and he guided trips into it.
In 1946, logger Lawrence Johnson of Amboy discovered Ape Cave. The Boy Scout troop led by Bill Reese’s father, Harry, was the first to explore it.
According to Bill Reese, his older brother Leonard was the first one in.
“We lowered him on ropes,” Reese said. “We dropped 100 feet of rope. We had no idea what was in front of us.”
Inside the cave, the wide-eyed Scouts found what they called “sand castles:” structures about 2 feet high that have long since been trampled. They also found a pure-white lizard, about the size of a match stick.
“You’d see a ripple in the water,” Reese said.
The troop was called the St. Helens Apes, after Sasquatch, so they bestowed their name on the newly discovered cave.
The Scouts fanned out through the woods looking for others and soon found Lake Cave.
“Little Red River Cave we found by looking at an aerial photo,” Reece said. Little Red River cave, 3,948 feet long, is north of Ape Cave, but a gate blocks entry.
“If too many people went in there it could destroy things like they did in Ape Cave,” Reese said.
Details on the caves
Ape Cave — By far the most-visited and the longest cave in the area is Ape Cave, which is more than 2 miles long. It’s the best cave to start with at Mount St. Helens if you’re new to cave-exploring.
The Ape Cave parking lot is located off of Road 8303 a short distance past the Trail of Two Forests and Lake Cave. In summer, a visitor center at Ape Cave provides information and rents lanterns.
http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/mountsthelens/recreation/otheractivities/recarea/?recid=40393&actid=102
Lake Cave — Lake Cave’s entrance is a few hundred yards from the parking lot for the Trail of Two Forests on Gifford Pinchot Road 8303. The marked trail heads to the left to a series of tree casts, where lava dried around trunks that later rotted away. A well-trodden but unmarked trail starts by the restroom and goes to the cave entrance, which is at N46° 05.827’ W122° 12.849’
Ole’s Cave — To reach Ole’s Cave, park on Road 83 just north of its intersection with Road 90, where there’s a gate blocking a spur road. It’s about 3/4 mile down the spur road to Ole’s Cave, which is about 6,500 feet long. Scouts said it requires more crawling than Lake Cave. It’s open to the public April 16 to Nov. 15.
Like the Scouts, be prepared — For all caves near Mount St. Helens, each caver should carry two sources of light. A lantern is useful at Ape Cave but difficult to handle in the other caves, which require crawling. Leather gloves can make clambering over rocks more comfortable, and knee pads can help, too. Sturdy boots are a good idea because of precarious footing on jagged rocks. It’s about 50 degrees inside the caves.
