Day 11 (Deschutes National Forest)

 

Day 11

We woke up around 6 am and got our lunches ready for the day. We made our way towards Deschutes National Park, first things first we met our guest for the day, Alex Enna. Alex was the reason we were able to get to see the events we did today and paid for our rides so if you’re reading this, THANK YOU ALEX! The first activity for the day was a quick geology lecture from Christine Hughes. She taught us about the various rocks that come pouring out of a volcano when they erupt.

 She mentioned the varying levels of cooled lava settlement, lava rocks, Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. We were then shown vary examples of the rocks, Cinder (the red colored rock), Pumas (The white rock that floats), Basalt (The two black textured lava rock) Obsidian (black glossy stone), The two unique rocks were two examples of Volcano bombs. When the volcano spews out volcanos bombs their shape, weight and color is based on the material inside, when the volcano bombs are airborne, they’re called tephra. When the tephra’s are launched, they’re easily moldable like blowing glass so they take on many shapes, there was one that looked like a croissant, so I believe it spiraled in the air like a football and that caused it to stretch and wrap around itself like croissant. The other lava bomb was very dark, and it looked a little like a prince Rupert drop, I believe this one was a majority iron because of its weight and shape. Christine also told us about the mountains that were able to see in the distance, the one up front with the broken top was called broke top, behind broken top were three other mountains called the three sisters, they were names south sister, middle sister, and north sister, respectively names due their placements.

After a very informative geography lesson we took no more than 15 minutes to explore the gift shop, check out the museum, or use the bathroom but we had to be ready to got by 9:50 for our shuttle that would take us to the top of the caldera where we would get a good view of the volcanos damage. While exploring the museum I got to see more about the minerals we had just learned about and it was pretty fun to see them in different sizes and the ones in the water. While I was there, I saw a video playing of volcanic eruption footage, I asked that kid who was sitting there watching if I could join him and he was so cool about it. The lil guy asked me if I knew that there was a flower that can survive lava, it’s called a Ohia Lehua and I would’ve never known if this random person brought it up for me to look it up. Nature is truly resilient, a flower that can not only survive lava but will proceed to grow after. He also told me to search up an Arabian Sand Boa, he said it would make my entire day, and it really did. This little kid was so fun to talk to, completely random interaction but he got me to look up two brand new things that I wanted to share.

Once we got up to the Caldera, we were able to see so much of the Deschutes National Park, everything always looks big and small at the same time from a bird’s eye view. I got to see a lot of the Cinder rocks and Basalt, a little pumas, but a big majority of the minerals at the top were cinder. Not just any cinder though, there were giant boulders of cinder in one piece just sitting there. I really wanted to check out the watch tower; there is a small section where you can hang out inside to stay cool but there was an entirely different section closed off to the public where I assume they do fire watch and is also their radio tower. I was hoping to catch one of the rangers while they were free so I could ask for a tour, but they all seemed pretty busy, and my time was limited so I took the trail around the caldera and appreciated the view. While taking my stroll I looked all around, got a better view of broken top and the sisters, I saw people going up the walking trail to go up the caldera and it looked so cool, lots of basalt everywhere.

After enjoying the caldera, Akex hooked us up and was able to get us to check out the lava cave. While were getting our geography lesson from Christine, a random family joined us, I still have no idea if they knew Jessica or Alex because they joined us for the lecture but also joined us for the lava cave. We arrived at the cave, and did quick introductions so Alex, the park team, and that family could know our names and majors. We were told about the precautions we must take for the bat’s safety and how delicately the ecosystem was down there. For starters anyone who has been in a cave within the last few months has to either not wear the same clothing they explored in the last cave with or just wait outside. This precaution is because white nose fungus can still survive for 2 months even after washing your clothes, it’s not lethal to us but to the poor bats this is extremely dangerous and a big reason for their current decline. We were also told not to touch any of the walls to the best of our abilities as any of our oils or debris can mess with the ecosystem and everything is the cave needs each other to survive.

After a lecture on safety for us and the bats we were asked to brush off our shoes, then handed flashlights designed for pitch black environments. The cave was so Dark and cool, completely forgot how hot it actually was outside because of how cold it was down there, as the cave goes over 300 feet down. We were told of the critters we may see in the cave, the bats were in hibernation so we would not be seeing any of them today, but we told to keep our eyes peeled for centipedes and Harvestman spider. I found what looked like a cricket, or a giant earwig, also kind of looked like dragonflies in their early stages, and everyone got super excited as that was not supposed to be in there. The first critter I found was pretty epic. Jessica was the first to spot a centipede and Aliyah found the first spider. After seeing what the spider and centipede look like I was beginning to spot them all over the cave, but I never saw another of the bugs I found. Everything in the cave was white, almost translucent, I’d have to assume this was because of the lack of light. It is very likely that our flashlights were the first time any of these guys saw light, so I made sure not hit them directly or at least not for more than a second because I didn’t want to hurt them with a flash bang. The cave had so many natural formations and marking but unfortunately my phone died in the cave, and I was not able to get pictures passed the centipede. There were big rocks with layers showing where the water flows were over the years or lava flow. There were also many lava sickles deep in the cave which kind of reminded me of a really tiny dripstone but significantly smaller and there were so many bundled together. There was this cool spot of the cave where the ceiling got low, to a tall person this may be a little claustrophobic but for me it was just a ceiling, I had to duck for a second, but I was able to walk through most of it without crouching like most of the group. We made it to the end of the tour for the cave, took our group picture and then made our way back out. The walk back was fine for the most part, but I really started feeling it towards the final stretch where we had to start walking up stairs.

After an amazing cave tour, we went back to the Deschutes National Park for lunch, after lunch we made our way to Benham Falls and got to do a nice stroll for an hour maybe an hour and half. We were told that this hike was optional and that if we were too tired, we could stay behind with Monette. The hike was very pretty, the water was a bright green due to the trees reflecting, further down the trail the same water became more vigorous as the rapids got more violent. There were many pretty views of the water, while there we also talked about the survival rate of someone rafting down the stream, and yeah, we all agreed that anything but a professional rafter will not make it, the rafter would have to be experienced with rapids of that level and have absolute perfect timing to make those turns.

After a nice hike we went back to our camp so that we could take showers. Showers are a little different here, so everyone is forced to take 3-minute showers. Showers cost $1.75 so were all handed our quarters told to be prepared with everything the second that water turns on its go go go. First up was cooking duty team, so Gavin, Dallas, Aliyah, and Monette showered first and went to camp to get dinner ready. The 3-minute shower was actually more than enough time; I’m convinced it was 5 minutes because of how fast I rushed it and still had plenty of time after. After the shower we went back to camp to meet up with the rest of the team. The group of us that weren’t on cooking duty checked into see what we could help with and after that we got our chemistry kits out for the 3 different soil samples we had to test out. But dinner came first.

For Dinner Monette out did herself and made some kbbq short ribs, rice, sweet cucumbers, beansprouts, shredded carrot, fried tofu, and plenty of condiments. We did a lot of walking around and morals were low, so the food hit even better. We all had a good dinner and re-energized. After dinner me and Judy got to the dishes, meanwhile the rest of the team got started on the samples we need to test. We had the team go ahead without us because the dishes were going to take a little longer than we would like. After we finished with the dishes we hopped in with the rest of the team and helped where we could, Gavina and Aliyah worked on the Crane’s Prairie sample, Phabian and Dallas took on the Birds Creek sample, and Lovey took on Mount Adams on her own. Me and Judy took the Ph meter levels while they were preparing their samples and waiting. This process has become second nature to us, and we are very capable once you let us of our leash and let us collaborate.

We took maybe an hour if not a little over to finish and after we were all done we all enjoyed a campfire together after a long day.