Weekend With the Cave Trolls
Last year Spring Break was totally epic, because Jake had the whole week off work too, and we got to explore like crazy. This year he had to work, so I invited my mom up to come have an adventure with me.
I love living in a rainforest. I do. But sometimes I really just miss being dry and warm. So my mom and I decided to head over the mountains in search of sunshine and the opportunity to shed a few layers. Little did I know... That definitely wasn't going to happen!! But a weekend of dwarves and cave trolls, raging waterfalls and perilous journeys across wind whipped waters?? How can you beat that?!
We set out for the "big city" (Redding) around noonish. The drive over the mountains was every bit as gorgeous as always. Even at the height of the rainy season, this incredible river remains virtually pristine and crystal clear. I am so in love with this river. She calls to me... like a siren singing softly in the night. We stopped in Weaverville and had lunch at the cute little garden cafe that we have gone to a couple of times before, but didn't dally around town at all. We had places to be.
I am ashamed to say, I cannot remember the name of this gorgeous waterfall. It is off the 299 somewhere between Weaverville and Redding. We saw the sign and decided to go check it out. Certainly not the tallest waterfall I've ever seen, but possibly the most powerful. The sheer volume of water rushing through this little gap in the mountains was beyond impressive! And I have a feeling it's a pretty nice swimming hole in the summer, when the flow is diminished, and the weather is nice and hot.
Driving through Redding was a bit of vulture shock... I mean culture shock. Interesting typo! Anyway... Redding is very developed with lots of the old disturbingly familiar strip malls and McMansions clustered in their twisted little gated "communities." Which is why we kept on driving through. We ended up at a very cute motel in Dunsmuir, which is a very cute town that is so quaint and sleepy it's almost impossible to believe it is just off the I-5 freeway.
In the morning we went to... SHASTA CAVERNS!!!!
To get to the caverns, which are actually privately owned, you have to take a funny flat-bottomed, open-air ferry across Shasta Lake, which is an absolutely gorgeous, turquoise blue, that is intense on a grey day, like this one, and truly spectacular in the sunshine. The shocking red of the shoreline only makes the water seem that much more blue. I would dearly love to explore it in the kayaks!! Someday. Soon.
I came hoping for a nice warm day... But it was pretty stormy out, and we got pelted with rain the whole way across.
The forest over there is very beautiful. The same sort I know so well from the mountains in Southern California, and it did make me dream once again of living in Idylwild... minus all the people and their pollution down in the valleys below. Comfortable and familiar, and yet so strange to see entire trees without having to look up!! Silly litte dwarf trees! ;)
The major up-side to the weather was that we were the only people who showed up to take the tour. Sweet! We had the guide all to ourselves and got to spend quite a bit of extra time inside the caverns, since there was no group coming along behind us either. Very, very cool! We actually got to spend so much time in there that I started to sketch out a little bit.
Entering the caverns was pretty surreal. You walk down a looooooooooong tunnel blasted into the rock, and suddenly you realize that you really are about to walk into the heart of the mountain. The recent earthquake in Japan was certainly on my mind as I walked into the darkness.
The other up-side to the rain was... the rain! Raining inside the cavern! And the opportunity to see the cavern building/carving process in action. Millions of years of this dripping carved all these spectacular rooms and deposited all these spectacular formations, and I was witnessing it in person. Very cool.
My camera fogged up before we even got out of the first cavern, but my mom's little P.O.S., I mean P&S, actually has a higher ISO than my expensive DSLR! Still these photos are obvious crap. But this is my favorite.
There are six or seven caverns connected by a labyrinth of steep, narrow, winding staircases. Spooky, creepy fun, and you could almost hear cave trolls shuffling about in the shadows.
This is the most spectacular cavern, with a dome over 200 feet high. It was truly Nature's own gothic cathedral. The guide told us that the little brown bats, which hibernate deeper in the cave, move out into this cave!! I am DEFINITELY going back this summer to try and see bats flying around in there! That would be just about the coolest thing Ever!
These formations are called draperies and are about thirty feel long each.
A close-up of the draperies.
So beautiful! The sparkle on these formations here is actually not water, it is an extremophile bacteria feeding on the stone itself!
P.S. Look how fracking CUTE my little elfin mommy is! Bundled up against the storm, which was blowing even harder on the way back across the lake. There were even little whitecaps out there! lol
I love living in a rainforest. I do. But sometimes I really just miss being dry and warm. So my mom and I decided to head over the mountains in search of sunshine and the opportunity to shed a few layers. Little did I know... That definitely wasn't going to happen!! But a weekend of dwarves and cave trolls, raging waterfalls and perilous journeys across wind whipped waters?? How can you beat that?!
We set out for the "big city" (Redding) around noonish. The drive over the mountains was every bit as gorgeous as always. Even at the height of the rainy season, this incredible river remains virtually pristine and crystal clear. I am so in love with this river. She calls to me... like a siren singing softly in the night. We stopped in Weaverville and had lunch at the cute little garden cafe that we have gone to a couple of times before, but didn't dally around town at all. We had places to be.
I am ashamed to say, I cannot remember the name of this gorgeous waterfall. It is off the 299 somewhere between Weaverville and Redding. We saw the sign and decided to go check it out. Certainly not the tallest waterfall I've ever seen, but possibly the most powerful. The sheer volume of water rushing through this little gap in the mountains was beyond impressive! And I have a feeling it's a pretty nice swimming hole in the summer, when the flow is diminished, and the weather is nice and hot.
Driving through Redding was a bit of vulture shock... I mean culture shock. Interesting typo! Anyway... Redding is very developed with lots of the old disturbingly familiar strip malls and McMansions clustered in their twisted little gated "communities." Which is why we kept on driving through. We ended up at a very cute motel in Dunsmuir, which is a very cute town that is so quaint and sleepy it's almost impossible to believe it is just off the I-5 freeway.
In the morning we went to... SHASTA CAVERNS!!!!
To get to the caverns, which are actually privately owned, you have to take a funny flat-bottomed, open-air ferry across Shasta Lake, which is an absolutely gorgeous, turquoise blue, that is intense on a grey day, like this one, and truly spectacular in the sunshine. The shocking red of the shoreline only makes the water seem that much more blue. I would dearly love to explore it in the kayaks!! Someday. Soon.
I came hoping for a nice warm day... But it was pretty stormy out, and we got pelted with rain the whole way across.
The forest over there is very beautiful. The same sort I know so well from the mountains in Southern California, and it did make me dream once again of living in Idylwild... minus all the people and their pollution down in the valleys below. Comfortable and familiar, and yet so strange to see entire trees without having to look up!! Silly litte dwarf trees! ;)
The major up-side to the weather was that we were the only people who showed up to take the tour. Sweet! We had the guide all to ourselves and got to spend quite a bit of extra time inside the caverns, since there was no group coming along behind us either. Very, very cool! We actually got to spend so much time in there that I started to sketch out a little bit.
Entering the caverns was pretty surreal. You walk down a looooooooooong tunnel blasted into the rock, and suddenly you realize that you really are about to walk into the heart of the mountain. The recent earthquake in Japan was certainly on my mind as I walked into the darkness.
The other up-side to the rain was... the rain! Raining inside the cavern! And the opportunity to see the cavern building/carving process in action. Millions of years of this dripping carved all these spectacular rooms and deposited all these spectacular formations, and I was witnessing it in person. Very cool.
My camera fogged up before we even got out of the first cavern, but my mom's little P.O.S., I mean P&S, actually has a higher ISO than my expensive DSLR! Still these photos are obvious crap. But this is my favorite.
There are six or seven caverns connected by a labyrinth of steep, narrow, winding staircases. Spooky, creepy fun, and you could almost hear cave trolls shuffling about in the shadows.
This is the most spectacular cavern, with a dome over 200 feet high. It was truly Nature's own gothic cathedral. The guide told us that the little brown bats, which hibernate deeper in the cave, move out into this cave!! I am DEFINITELY going back this summer to try and see bats flying around in there! That would be just about the coolest thing Ever!
These formations are called draperies and are about thirty feel long each.
A close-up of the draperies.
So beautiful! The sparkle on these formations here is actually not water, it is an extremophile bacteria feeding on the stone itself!
P.S. Look how fracking CUTE my little elfin mommy is! Bundled up against the storm, which was blowing even harder on the way back across the lake. There were even little whitecaps out there! lol