At 12,810 feet, it's one of the longest continuing lava tubes in the world. Members named themselves Apes after the Sasquatch who supposedly stalked the area, and the label stuck to the cave as well. Those modern-day Merlins felt the magic the first time they peered into the darkness and followed the eerie tube. Years later, the ''what's next'' feeling remains in the cave's cold, drafty, pitch-black world. With well over 100,000 visitors a year, Ape Cave is one of the most popular spots in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest after the volcano visitor centers and Windy Ridge.
Visitors enter a gaping hole in the landscape and start down a steep staircase.
Or they can head north, up a slight incline and over a rocky, hazardous route that runs more than a mile to the upper entrance. Cavers who choose the tougher north route can climb out there and hike back on an above-ground trail. North or south, the cave offers startling evidence that Mother Nature is a potter. Its textures and shapes first came to life when molten lava gouged the surface of the Earth, following a stream bed. Over the duration of the eruption, the lava pushed into the ground, and as it flowed, it cooled.