black hole

Ok, so you're probably wondering why I have a picture of a hole on here. Let me explain. Jon and I visited the Lava Butte vicinity, the day we were returning to Portland from Newberry Crater Monument. We decided to hike the "Lava River Cave." Now most people aren't crazy about hiking in the dark, underground, but we're simply not normal. This view was taken as Jon and I finished the mile-long hike of an old lava tube, as we approached the exit (or entrance) of the cave and finally saw light again. It was by far one of the freakiest things I've done. We did not bring adequate light in-- you are supposed to use a lantern!! Jon and I were one of the only souls in the place, and we thought we could just use our headlamps to see. I guess we knew it would be pitch black, 42 degrees, and bats around, but we forged on anyway. As we were stumbling around in there-- thinking that bats would fly out at us at any minute, we were astounded by the beauty of this tube. The tube was created when lava poured down from an ancient volcano. The edges of the lava flow cooled faster, and thus the tube became smaller as it went. The last 300 feet of the cave was so small, that we were literally crawling on our hands and knees to make it to the end. Clostrophobics need not try this. At some points in the cave, the ceiling is as much as 60 feet tall. At the point where the cave goes under highway 97, the ceiling of the tube is 50 feet thick. The entire time we were wondering how this hike was safe to the public as we saw large boulders that look they just fell. Then we saw a group of middle schoolers, so we figured we better finish!!