One More Otherworldly Stop

A-caving we will go; Photo: Caty Stevens

We had finished our planned activities and we were heading back to Willows, California, where we would spend the night before flying home. I picked Willows when I couldn’t find any hotels with vacancies near the Sacramento Airport and I saw that Willows was near a National Wildlife Refuge where maybe I could do some birding.

It turns out that we didn’t do that much in Willows because we decided to go see another National Monument on our way down: Lava Beds.

Another new one

Lava Beds National Monument

Located in northeastern California just south of the Oregon border, Lava Beds National Monument lies on the northeastern flank of Medicine Lake Volcano and has the largest total area covered by a volcano in the Cascade Range.

A little detour; Map: NPS

Lava Beds has 72 square miles of volcanic formations, including fumaroles, cinder cones, spatter cones, pit craters, hornitos, maars, lava flows, volcanic fields and numerous lava tubes, of which 27 have marked entrances and developed trails for public access and exploration. It has the largest concentration of lava tubes in North America.

A lava tube

The majority of cave-forming basaltic lava flows in the monument originated at Mammoth Crater, covering roughly 60 percent of the surface of the Park. Roughly 90 percent of the lava is basaltic, both smooth, ropy pahoehoe and rough, jagged ʻaʻā. Most of the rest of the lava in the monument is andesitic, an extrusive rock intermediate in composition between rhyolite and basalt. Pumice, a type of rhyolitic lava, rained down on the area around 900 years ago during the eruption of Glass Mountain.

Devil's Homestead Flow; Photo: NPS

The flows from Mammoth and Modoc Craters comprise about two-thirds of the lava in the monument. More than 30 separate lava flows in the park range from 1,110 to 2 million years old.

Lava flows dated to about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago formed most of the lava tubes in the monument. As the hot basaltic lava flowed downhill, the top cooled and crusted over, insulating the rest of the lava and forming tubes. Lavacicles on the ceiling of a lava tube were produced as the level of lava in the tube retreated and the viscous lava on the ceiling dripped as it cooled.

Lavacicles

Lava beds is interesting because it allows unsupervised entry to a wide variety of tubes, which are rated according to difficulty. Some require hardhats. Some require crawling (and knee-pads). Some require squeezing through passageways as small as 12" in diameter. The Rangers at the Visitor Center assist visitors with assessing what equipment is needed. the Park sells, rents and lends equipment, as well.

Cave selfie

Caty and I visited two of the tubes, which are often called caves even though their structure and formation is quite different. Of course, we picked easy, no-crawl tubes. 

Some of the others gave me heebie jeebies just hearing the descriptions.

Located near the Visitor Center, Mushpot has a 770-foot- long paved path, dim electrical lighting and interpretive signs. 

You have to climb down a metal ladder, but it's a very easy, non-scary walk.

The trail through Mushpot Cave

Take a walk here.

Skull Cave was a little more interesting. It has an even constructed trail and a series of metal ladders that take you down to the floor of the cave, which is perpetually covered in ice. I expected more of a skating rink, but the ice, separated from the trail by metal bars, was gray and dirty looking. Not too exciting.

But, going in the cave was a unique experience for us since we had never been in a cave alone without a guide.

Coming out into the light; Photos: Caty Stevens

There is no lighting, so I took my phone, a headlamp and a flashlight. Hey, I wasn’t taking any chances!

Skull Cave is even shorter than Mushpot and is considered good for people who don’t like tight, closed-in spaces. 

Skull Cave

It is wide and high because it is a remnant of three very large lava tubes, one on top of the other, that collapsed together.

You can see the lines between two tubes

It is named for the bones of Pronghorn, Bighorn Sheep and two human skeletons discovered inside.

It was hot outside and comfortable but not cold in the tubes. In Skull Cave, the railings on the metal stairs were cold, getting colder and colder as you climbed to the ice bottom. I wish I had had gloves because we had to stop a few times and warm our hands. 

Down to the ice; brrrrrrr

The Park materials describe great diversity in wildlife. We didn’t see much except some Red-tailed Hawks and an American Kestrel (Lava Beds has recorded 24 species of raptors).

We saw this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk on the road to the Park

We saw a few grasshoppers in the Park and thousands on the highway in.

Band-winged Grasshopper

There are Bats and concerns about white nose syndrome. I was wearing different clothes and shoes and Caty disinfected her shoes. They told us that they weren’t too concerned about people coming from Oregon Caves because it hasn’t had white nose issues, but they are trying to protect the caves.

Historically occupied by the Modoc people, Lava Beds was the site of the Modoc War in 1872-1873. 

Kintpuash; Photo: The Oregon Encyclopedia

A group of families had escaped the Klamath Reservation in Oregon, to which they had been removed so European Americans could take their lands. 

Led by Kintpuash (also known as Captain Jack), they used the lava beds as a defensive stronghold to resist being captured and returned. 

Taking refuge in a natural lava fortress that was later named Captain Jack's Stronghold, a group of 53 men and their families held off U.S. Army forces, amounting to ten times the Modocs' population, for five months.

 Captain Jack's Stronghold; Photo: USGS

In April 1873, at a peace commission meeting, Captain Jack killed General Edward Canby while associates killed one and wounded two other commissioners. The Modoc mistakenly thought the Americans would leave if their leaders were killed. Instead Army reinforcements were brought in and the Modoc were eventually forced to surrender. Kintpuash and his associates were convicted of war crimes for the murders and executed by hanging at Fort Klamath.

Lava Beds was established as a national monument in 1925 and was expanded to include Lava Beds National Wilderness in 1972.

It was enlightening; Caty in Skull Cave

Tule Lake National Monument

As we were leaving to continue on to Willows, we stopped to take a look at Tule Lake National Monument, which is on the highway into Lava Beds. Unfortunately, it wasn’t open, so all we could do is read the interpretive signs and look at the distant buildings. 

It looks like NPS administrative buildings or a dude ranch

It is the site of Tule Lake War Relocation Center, one of ten camps constructed in 1942 by the U.S. government to incarcerate Japanese Americans forcibly removed from their homes on the West Coast. Prisoners reached nearly 120,000 people, more than two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens.

Telling a tragic story

In 1943, the facility was renamed the Tule Lake Segregation Center and used as a maximum-security segregation camp to separate and hold prisoners considered disloyal or disruptive to the operations of other camps. This included draft resisters and people who protested injustices, including by their answers on a loyalty questionnaire. At its peak, Tule Lake Segregation Center had 18,700 inmates and was the largest and most controversial of the ten camps. Almost 30,000 people were held there over the four years it was open.

Make no mistake; it was a concentration camp; Photo: Discover Nikkei

After the war, it became a holding area for Japanese Americans slated for deportation or expatriation to Japan, including some who had renounced U.S. citizenship under duress. Many joined a class action suit because of civil rights abuses; many gained the chance to stay in the country through court hearings but did not regain their citizenship due to opposition by the Department of Justice. The camp was not closed until March 20, 1946, months after the end of the war. Twenty years later, members of the class action suit gained restoration of U.S. citizenship through court rulings.

Starting in 1974, Tule Lake is the site of biannual pilgrimages by activists calling for an official apology from the U.S. government for the injustices to Japanese Americans, both citizens and non-citizens. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, included an official governmental apology for the injustices and payment of compensation to camp survivors. A similar law was passed in 1992 to provide for compensation to additional Japanese Americans.

NPS tour; Photo: Klamath Falls Herald and News

The National Monument consists of three separate units: the Tule Lake Segregation Center near Newell, California, nearby Camp Tulelake (where we stopped) and a rock formation known as the Peninsula/Castle Rock near Newell. The Tule Lake Segregation Center is solely managed by the National Park Service. Camp Tulelake is jointly managed by the NPS and United States Fish and Wildlife Service; the USFWS manages/owns the land and the NPS maintains the buildings and provides interpretive programs. Peninsula/Castle Rock is solely managed by the USFWS.

The End of a Great Trip

Then, we headed down the highway, stopping a few times for some nice birds. 

Juvenile Western Bluebird

After we got to Willows, we decided we wanted to go see the Barbie Movie and were shocked that the closest theater (that we could find) was 30 miles away in Chico. We drove through miles and miles of farms to get there, but the movie was fun. 

The next morning, we got up early, drove the hour to Sacramento and flew back home.

Another fun trip!

Trip date: July 29 - August 5, 2023