The Lava Tube

 

Late in the afternoon on my first full day at the resort, I signed up for an excursion into a lava tube, also at Snow Canyon State Park.  This whole area of SW Utah was very volcanic in the geologic past, and lava fields can be seen in many of my photos.  In fact, there is also a lot of lava near where I live in Cedar City.  On this particular hike, I met a lovely woman named Annette from the Detroit area, who was also staying at the resort.  There were just the 2 of us and our guide Shelly hiking to the lava tube. 

When I say tube, one would imagine just walking into something the size of a huge circular drainage pipe.  Apparently, that does happen in other parts of the world, but not here.  If you want the full explanation of what they are, click here.  This tube had collapsed leaving a hole to climb down into and lots of rock fall from the ceiling on the floor of the tube.  Actually, it was more of a cave than a tube.

We started out on the Butterfly Trail, aptly named for a rock formation caused by a falling boulder that split into two.

Then on to the Lava Tube Trail.

Upon approaching the entrance to the tube, I was a bit dismayed that we had to first climb down a vertical 12 foot wall.  Imagine looking over the edge in this photo.  The opening to the tube is at the back of the big hole. 

Our guide went first, and expertly guided Annette and me down step by step.  She then photographed us before we actually entered the tube.  At this point, we already had our headlamps on, as the tube would be totally dark inside.

Here is a photo looking from the inside back out towards the entrance.

Here I am inside with my headlamp on.

It was a unique sensation being underground like that.  It was also very dusty and dirty, and we had to climb over rock fall from the ceiling the whole time.  I had heard that a lot of people don’t go down in there because they are claustrophobic, but with the headlamp on, one had to be looking down all the time to climb safely, so there was really no sensation of being closed in at all. 

Shelly then helped us retrace our steps and climb up that vertical wall out to the open air.  Relief at last!!!  By then the sun was going down.  Annette and I had dinner together, and hung out a lot for the remainder of our stays.