You will need to have your picture taken holding your GPS with
the cave in the background. (Pictures of a hand and GPS will be
deleted.)
Email me the approximate demensions of the cave.
- Entrance width and height:
- Inside the Cave, what is the approximate width and height:
- How do you think this cave was formed?
Please do not post answers in you log.
Any logs without meeting the required picture or emailing the
answers will be deleted.
This is definitely one of the most scenic trails in the area. It
is abundant of wild flowers, wild life, and other geological
features along the way.
You will need to bring plenty of water and a snack or lunch.
This is an all day hike. We started at 9am and were back in the
parking area sometime around 5pm, so allow yourself plenty of time
to make the hike. Continue on past this earthcache to visit Snow
Falls. It's worth the extra effort.
Near the edge of mountain escarpments where faulting has
occurred, tectonic caves are found. These caves are formed as a
fault or a joint widens along the edge of an escarpment rather that
being formed by dissolved bedrock.
Glaciers often have caves along their base. As the ice of the
glacier melts, water will work its way to the base of the glacier
where it flows along the ice/bedrock boundary. There, it can melt a
passage large enough for human to traverse. These glacier caves
sometimes go several hundred feet under a glacier.
Over thousands of years, areas with limestone rocks can develop
caves. Groundwater dissolves a network of tunnels in the rock. If
the water table is lowered by a change in climate or tectonic
uplift of the area, groundwater drains out of the tunnels, leaving
the caverns exposed to air.
Billions of years ago during the early formation of the Earth,
life first appeared on the Earth underneath the ocean's waters.
Many of the early organisms were protected by shell coverings. When
these organisms died, their shell deposits were left behind on the
ocean floor. These shells left behind by the millions of organisms
that lived on the floor of the oceans turned into sedimentary rock
due to the tremendous pressure and gravitational force applied by
many layers of build up over a period of billions of years.
After billions of years of sedimentary rock build up and Earth
movements, the rocks beneath the ocean floor began to rise up above
the water levels of the oceans. The rising land surfaces began to
drain and became dry land and mountainous regions of present day.
The new land surfaces formed were composed mainly of limestone
which is a mineral that is formed from corals and shells of
preexisting organisms.
As time elapsed, the limestone sediment began to dissolve,
crack, and break because limestone is a very permeable rock. The
water cycle was the main cause of the wearing away of the limestone
sediment that made up various land areas of the Earth. Carbonic
acid in rain water reacting within limestone sediment erodes away
the limestone as the water filters into the underlying depths of
sediments that compose the interior of the Earth's land areas.
Large hollow cavities are carved within the limestone sediment deep
within the interior of the Earth after billions of years of the
weathering process. There can be many rooms that occur at various
depths because of continual seepage and water flow to these cave
areas.
Entrances to caves are carved from the cave's underground water
flow. The water flow is like an underground river that can
eventually carve its way through a mountainside creating waterfalls
on the outside surface areas. Another entrance that caves have are
pit and depression areas that are located at the tops of caves.
Many beautiful structures form inside caverns. All structures
inside of a cavern require millions of years to develop which occur
as carbonic acid carrying limestone drip through the cavern
areas.
Some of these structures inside a cavern include: speleothems,
helictites, stalactites, stalagmites, and columns.