Ape Cave is a lava tube located in Gifford Pinchot National Forest just to the south of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. Its passageway is the longest continuous lava tube in the continental United States, at 13,042 feet (3,975 m). Ape Cave is a popular hiking destination with beautiful views of the Mount St. Helens lahar region. Lava tubes are an unusual formation in this region, as volcanoes of the Cascade Range are mostly stratovolcanos and do not typically erupt with pahoehoe (fluid basalt).
The cave was discovered in 1947 by Lawrence Johnson, a logger, when his truck fell into a sinkhole which opened into the cave. A Boy Scout troop under the leadership of Harry Reese performed the first exploration in 1950. They named the cave for their sponsor, the St. Helens Apes, a local group made up of mostly foresters.
Famous quotes containing the words ape and/or cave:
“A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it an apostle is hardly likely to look out.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand, which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)