8 miles of hiking • 750' elevation gain •
Still seeking hikes out of the rain, we decided to go underground today! Had a lot of fun visiting a place I hadn't been in close to 20 years. Parked out by the "Trail of Two Forests," where the road was gated. Walked in to Ape Cave from there, and had some fun with the Whiskey Jacks near the entrance before taking the plunge in.
We ended up going down-cave as far as we could (without crawling), before turning around and heading back up-cave to the top. I guess it's been closer to 30 years since I've done the upper section, and I'd forgotten what a freakin' workout that is! Wow... and fun, too! We enjoyed our lunch after exiting at the upper end. Only disappointment was finding a lot of graffiti in a few places, mostly at the top. Altogether we traveled 3.2 miles underground (according to William Sullivan's map), although the GPS crapped out as soon as we were down there and only registered the straight 1-mile between entrance and exit.
After walking back to the car, we decided to wander around the "Trail of Two Forests" area for awhile. Not a good place to be off-trail with a light snow cover! Really awesome tree casts all over, some from trees that had to be close to 1000 years old. Incredible. Really good day!
Comments
Karl
February 1, 2016
Heh, yeah, pretty much constant drippage. That shot of Peder by the little lake says it well. The ropes were still there, for which I was thankful! The vandalism was very disappointing, yep, and may end up costing us the ability to get in there much of the time. :-(
Roman
January 31, 2016
One time I also went in Ape Cave in winter to escape rain - and never took raincoat off while in there! It's fun there though, especially the upper cave. Too bad about graffitis.
Are the ropes still in place?