We awoke uncomfortably in the cab of my truck at about 6:30 am. After utilizing the facilities for their requisite needs, we began our journey southward once more, the intention of which being simply to turn around at the Battle Ground exit. This task was accomplished easily enough, and we were soon headed northward again, toward exit 21.
Toward Cougar.
Not a lot happened between then and Cougar. We stopped in at the gas station in Cougar so that I could make change in order to pay for parking, and the gas station was utterly fascinating to me, for two reasons. The first and less important reason is that there were more and various kinds of beverage for sale with alcohol than without. Curious. The second was that just outside the main building of the convenience store, was an add-on, like a formalized lean-to. It clearly wasn't a part of the store, and had only the one entrance, but as I came around I realized that it was just a room for people to sit in and talk. There were probably 5 men in there ranging in age from 40 to 75 or so. Maybe this is a horrible stereotype on my part, but I couldn't help imagining them swapping various fishing tales. The idea of which was utterly fascinating.
I bought a root beer and some Grandma's cookies. Chocolate Chip. They weren't as good as I remember.
We left the store and continued eastward, stopping next at Cougar Park on the Yale Reservoir. At least, I think that was the name of the park. There, I changed clothes in order to be better suited to the treacherous environs of the confines of the cave.
When we got there, it was obvious that there was no one else present. It was roughly 8:30 in the morning. The parking lot was completely empty, aside from my own vehicle.We outfitted ourselves with more than enough supplies, assuming that it was better to be over-prepared than under.
Then, we began our descent.
Man, those REI-bought headlamps were so much better than my ironically solar-powered flashlights. It actually became pretty easy to set up my camera and tripod and take various pictures of the cave interior. The only drawback was that at times, the cave walls were too distant for the camera to get an accurate read on for the purposes of autofocus. This, however, also made it difficult for the purposes of manual focus, as well. I did my best though, and a number of them came out very nicely, I think.
It was quite a bit of fun playing with the headlamps and the various settings, tilting the direction up and down, and switching between spot and flood. At times it was difficult to achieve the envisioned image, though, because we would have a tendency to move or shift with the headlamp during the prolonged exposure.
The cave opened up and narrowed down, as we ventured forth down the lower tube. At times it seemed wide enough to be able to drive a bus through. It appeared for the most part flat, as well, though that was partially a consequent of the light being so bright at such close range as to leave very little in shadow. This caused me to trip. A lot. I never fell down, though.
I took what felt like a lot of pictures, but really wasn't all that many. It just seemed like more because the shutter was open so much of the time. Ah, well.
We reached the end of the cave, and we saw that it became increasingly lower and more confined. The young man at the REI had suggested commando crawling to the end, just to touch the wall and say that you had done it, but I got the sense that being able to say that wasn't all that important to me. Especially given the camera and tripod that I was hauling around, and even though we were in a cave by ourselves to that point, I didn't want to just leave them alone.
About halfway back, we encountered our first other cave venturers. The first of many.In the darkness, it came to light that it would be a good idea to resurface and drop off some of the things that hadn't played such an integral part in our excursion to that point. Just under the mouth of the cave, I stopped to take a few more pictures, playing around with various exposures, and at some point it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to finish the series without people in the shot. Many, many more people were now heading down into the depths.
We resurfaced, resupplied, then went forth once more into the hole in the ground that is Ape Cave. This second leg of the journey was to be only short lived. We took the paths that were easy enough, they led us to a great, cavernous room with what was reportedly the first of, I believe twenty-seven was the number given by the tour guide two weeks prior, rock piles. It didn't look so bad until you start to climb it, not knowing which way to go to reach the continuation of the cave. Inevitably, we went the wrong way to start with and saw another place that looked like it would have been commando-crawl-able, and decided against that. We circled around, and tried it from the other direction, but until other people came along who looked like they knew where they were going, we remained uncertain as to where the cave path lay.
At last, feeling sufficiently beaten and still unprepared, we decided to turn around. I'll take the blame, and say that it was me and the camera,and the tripod. I had cleverly hooked the tripod to a useful strap on the pants I was wearing, but even though the tripod no longer required a constant hand, it still necessitated quite a bit of maneuvering through and across the rocks. My assessment is that the lower tube is for picture taking, but the upper tube is for adventuring. One day I'll go back and make a day of the upper. It was not that day, however.
The above was a continuous red beam, the below was the spotlight on strobe.
We encountered a few more people on the way out, including a Swedish couple, I believe; the man of which fell in a hole that was about a foot deeper than the rest of the cave floor. He was alright, and I had to stifle a laugh.
Back at the mouth of the cave, I once more set to work trying to complete that series I had started before. This time, I was able to. I was pretty happy about that.
Upon exit, I noticed a weird thing. There was a group of three people walking toward the cave who appeared to have no light sources with them. They had pants with pockets, so they may have been concealing their lights, but I remain skeptical.
As we approached the truck to make our escape, a couple in the neighboring car offered me their parking pass. I reluctantly declined, citing the fact that I already had one. That, and my truck's plate number wouldn't have matched. Oh, well (no, cave!).
The drive back down from the cave, through Cougar, and--save a couple of stops at an abandoned-looking couple of houses and a day park on the reservoir--was fairly uneventful. We had discussed hunger levels, but neither of us were really feeling that a stop was necessary.
Until we drove past... aah! I can't remember the name of it. And I'm on the road and away from my pictures, so am unable to reference them for the answer. Anyway, it was a unique chicken restaurant. We had discussed stopping there before, and upon seeing it again, I realized that my hunger level not being desperate enough was no excuse. I needed to stop at this chicken place. And stop we did. It took us a while to figure out what we wanted. I had some kind of chicken sandwich (how unoriginal, I know) and a Cookie Dough Hurricane. A lot like a Blizzard from Dairy Queen in concept, but a little grittier. And the dough blobs were cubed. That was weird.
There was also a deaf man who dropped off some buttons at our table and with a message saying that we could donate money for the buttons, and that was how he was trying to support his family. He left for a while, then returned. I fished around and found a couple of dollars for him. For some reason the idea of the buttons was intriguing to me.
After that, we were once more on our way. I was getting a little tired after a while, and it looked like my friend was nodding off a bit, so I decided to introduce her to a podcast. It's This American Life, and it was an episode that I have kept on my phone because it is very... emotionally powerful. It's got all the hallmarks of a Hollywood action film, but goes to some length in describing the fallout of the events detailed within. The episode is entitled 'Save the Day,' and the act concerns a man approaching 40 years of age, who wants to change someone's life. He wants to do something good with his own. He finds out about a couple of reportedly kidnapped children and, using his own unique skillset, goes about tracking them down. If you want more than that, I highly encourage seeking it out and giving it a listen. It's episode #402.
Rolling with the emotionally powerful, I decided to play a song by Richard Buckner, called Tom Merritt. Go on, find it at www.grooveshark.com and give it a listen. Pay attention to the lyrics.
Soon thereafter, the tiredness began to set in again. A stop at the Starbucks in the Chehalis Safeway, and everything was good again. Except for my gas tank seeming dangeriously low, but that's all part of the adventure, right? RIGHT?
Ever northward and into Seattle, we were able to take the express lanes, which seemed all well and good. Until they merged with the express-less lanes in Northgate. Then there was traffic. And it was bad. A few minutes later, my check engine light came on, and according to my owners manual, that can mean 1 or 3 things. I don't remember the other 2, but one of them is that the vehicle is running on reserve fuel. I think the reserve amount is either 1.5 or 0.5 gallons.
It became do or die (at least as far as the truck goes--or wouldn't have gone, as the case may be), and it did. We made it to her exit and I stopped at a gas station before dropping her off. Fifty some odd dollars and about 10 minutes later, she was safely at home, and I was headed for home, myself.
Except that I decided to go over to my parents house and share my pictures with my dad. My mom was out at the time. It was pretty awesome. My dad showed me the pictures from their recent adventures, and I forced him to see the pictures from my own.
Then I really did go home, unpack--and by unpack I simply mean haul all my stuff inside, drop it on the floor, and pretty much collapse. I was exhausted.
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