Summer 2018, Day 29: Lava Beds NM, WW2 Valor in the Pacific NM-Tule Lake Unit

Shabbos dispersed camping on the California/Oregon border was peaceful. We went for a walk and turned around when we ran into a bull.

This morning we wanted to visit Lava Beds National Monument. We decided to double up on the motorcycles and drive there.

We decided to explore the Catacombs cave, which we last visited on Day 473:

Today we’re exploring a portion of the cave that we didn’t explore the last time:

The floor and the ceiling are not mistake friendly:

The lava made interesting patterns as it cooled:

We eventually ran into reduced ceiling clearance:

We arrived at Howard’s Hole:

Subsequent lava flows create tunnels at multiple levels. Howard’s Hole is a break between levels, and we used it to explore the next level up:

At some point, B and I continued on. We eventually arrived at “Cleopatra’s Tomb”:

These arrows point to “The Crossover”, a one-foot high passage connecting to the part of the cave we explored last time:

We all cut our heads or backs on the ceiling:

On the way back, we went up a level:

The map shows our last visit in red, our current visit in blue, and the overlap in purple. Click the photo for a larger view:

Out we go:

All of this would have been a lava tube had the ceiling not collapsed:

After our spelunking, we motorcycled back to the RV, stowed the motorcycles, and drove north. We stopped to look at what’s left of Tule Lake Segregation Center. Built during World War II in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Tule Lake was one of ten Japanese American internment camps used to imprison over 100,000 US residents of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were US citizens. This is the fifth internment camp we’ve visited:

We visited the visitor center for the Tule Lake Unit of World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The Tule Lake unit preserves the Tule Lake Segregation Center, not yet open to the public: