Oregon Caves
Posted by Van on Sunday Jun 5, 2011 Under TravelsMay 29, we drove up to Oregon Caves National Monument. We thought we had seen the last of the snow in southern Utah, but we were wrong. As we climbed up into the Cascades that morning the snow was falling hard, and the mountaintop looked like a winter wonderland.
We were not expecting snow again, two days before June!
The cave was very beautiful. It was a small cave, and relatively young, at about a million and a half years. It is a marble cave, and it was cool to see the marble in the ceilings and steps throughout the cave. The entrance and first several 100 yards of the cave were along and atop the stream which cut the cave, the Styx river. It was nice to hear it roar along and see its path through the rocks.
At the entrance to the cave, the mouth of the Styx river.
The downside of this cave: a significant number of the cave decorations were removed by early visitors to the cave. Two rooms were almost completely defaced. There was one room however, called Paradise Lost, which was absolutely beautiful. It must have been too difficult to access in the early days, because it was a wonder to behold.
A portion of the waterfall formation in the Paradise Lost room
2 Responses to “Oregon Caves”
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June 6th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
why was it called,”Paradise Lost”???
June 8th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Hi Brynnie! This is Stella! I’m not exactly sure why it’s called that, but I can tell you what I remember. I think it was called Paradise Lost because… Okay. Here’s the story.
Two men, ( I don’t remember their names ) discovered that room. They didn’t see it, because there was no light, so how did they discover it? Wanna know how? They brought their dog along with them one day. They had made it to the Ghost Room, and suddenly their dog barked. The sound echoed up around the ceiling. That told them there was a room up there. But they couldn’t get up to it, so it was a ” Paradise Lost”.
P.S. Miss you, Brynnie!