Following our trip to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument a couple of days earlier, I thought it would be fun to visit the Lava River Cave, a 3/4 mile-long tube formed by molten rock, located within Coconino National Forest. This was also about a half hour drive from Flagstaff. Part of the drive through the forest was on unpaved roads, but our SUV was more than capable of the trip.
Here are signs with information of the cave:
Sign with Information of Lava River Cave
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Sign with Information of Lava River Cave
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Map of Lava River Cave
For some reason, I did not photograph the entrance to the cave from the outside. My attempts to photograph the cave from the inside were far from successful. Backlighting in the photo below (ISO 400, 1/2 second) did not help.
Descending into Lava River Cave
In other photos, below, my lack of camera flash was not helpful, even though I changed to a setting of 3200 ISO.
Descending into Lava River Cave
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Lava River Cave
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Lava River Cave
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Lava River Cave
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Lava River Cave
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Lava River Cave
I rest the camera to the maximum 25,600 ISO, and got somewhat better results:
Lava River Cave
Beyond the horrible photography, there were other problems. Reading about the cave in advance, I had believed that a scramble was required down from the entrance into the lava tube, but that otherwise the floor would be smooth. Nothing was further from the truth. The floor was uneven and littered with boulders or rocks, requiring not-stop scrambling. This was made even more challenging because Shaina wanted to hold my hand or Batya’s hand, leading us to fall a few times.
Lava River Cave
We probably only got about 1/4 of a mile into the cave before we decided we would have to give up. Shaina was becoming hysterical, and while I could have easily carried her on level ground, it would be much more challenging to do so while scrambling over boulders. We did our best to keep her calm, and once we made it back to the point that we could see daylight from the entrance, she calmed down.
It was nice to see daylight again, and I apologized profusely to Batya and Shaina for not having understood that the trip to the cave would be much more than a scramble at the entrance.
Driving out of the forest, we encountered a small herd of deer in a meadow:
Deer in Coconino National Forest
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