Oregon Caves National Monument

FYI – Cascade Siskiyou Nation Monument was a Clinton designation – Obama increased it by 48,000 acres during his term. Oregon Caves NM was more historic (all the early Presidents got the good stuff) , being designated by Taft in 1909.

While nobody knows truly when the first people entered these caves, in 1874 Elijah Davidson discovered the cave as far as white Europeans are concerned. Over the next two decades, many private businesses failed at running successful tourist ventures at the publicly owned site. Those failures along with the majesty of the grounds likely led Taft to use the Antiquities Act to designate it as a National Monument.

Oregon Caves are distinguished by the fact they are carved out of marble. Originally limestone, Oregon Caves metamorphosed into marble as part of the formation of the Siskiyou Mountains a few million years ago. By cave standards, these caves, at a few million years, are relatively young.

At some point, Congress deemed this Monument a worthier site, giving it a budget and putting it under the management of the National Park Service rather than the BLM or the Forest Service. As a result, it has a visitor center as well as other amenities not always associated with National Monuments.

We toured the cave and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. While the features were not particularly unique from other caves we’ve visited, the unique characteristics of the marble and its surface features were compelling. Also, it was clearly the tightest cave we’ve toured, requiring the “duck walk” much of the time – bent at the knees to lower yourself to under 4 feet, yet still allowing you to look ahead for the imminent head fractures from the low rocks that you would surely encounter.

We also stumbled on more wildlife here than anywhere on our path so far. While squirrels, chipmunks and mountain bluebirds were prolific, we also saw lots of deer looking for a morsel. Many of the mommy deer had their young closely at their sides.

Talk to you soon!