Caving Trip

 
Where did we go?
The most challenging experience of the program was the caving trip to Lake Shasta. The adventure involved camping, hiking, earth science, cave biology, caving and swimming in the lake.
It also required lots of preparation. We studied cave life in the museum’s bat cavern classroom exhibit. We learned caving skills, such as crawling and squeezing through tight spaces and finding our way in complete darkness. Then we visited a climbing wall to prepare us for the physical and mental challenges of navigating through caves.
What did we do?  

Lake Shasta Caverns
Visiting Lake Shasta Caverns involves a boat ride across the lake and a bus ride up a steep winding road to the top of a limestone cliff overlooking the lake. Lake Shasta Caverns is located near the top of the cliff overlooking the lake.

Roger, the director of Lake Shasta Caverns, let us explore parts of the caverns that are off-limits to ordinary tourists and visiting classes. Here we learned to crawl, squeeze, climb and stretch to enter hidden grottoes. The cave formations in this cave are spectacular.

Samwel Cave

The next day we explored Samwel Cave in the Shasta Trinity National Forest. Unlike Shasta Caverns, Samwel Cave is not a "show cave." Lake Shasta Caverns has stairs, lights, and other amenities that enable nearly any person to go inside. Samwel Cave, on the other hand, can only be explored under the supervision of experienced adult cavers and by permission of the U.S. Forest Service.

Justen wears his helmet and headlamp ready to enter Samwel Cave.

Dropping down into the cave was the most difficult maneuver. We had to squeeze through a culvert gate and into a wedge-shaped opening and then use a rope to inch our way down a sloping ledge to the main cavern, the Pleistocene Room.
As the ceilings of caves are often quite low, all cavers must wear a helmet to prevent head injuries. A headlamp, an additional flashlight and extra batteries are required to explore wild caves like Samwel Cave

Melissa and Lela are happy to be caving in California.
   
Cool Cave Facts
Samwel Cave and Lake Shasta Caverns are both limestone caves. Limestone rock originates from ancient seabeds. Millions of years ago, the Lake Shasta area was actually covered by an ancient ocean. Coral reefs, shellfish, and other hard-shelled creatures lived in this ocean and left their shells behind when they died. Pressure and heat fused the material into stone. Many millions of years later the oceans subsided. Then, geologic forces thrust these huge formations of limestone upwards to form a mountain range. Samwel Cave and Lake Shasta Caverns formed when carbonic acid in rainwater seeped down and slowly eroded large holes underground in these limestone mountains.

 

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Let's Go!
Want to learn more about caves? Check out the Oakland Museum's California Underground website!

Visit Shasta Caverns website to see some of these amazing cave formations and images of the route to the caverns.