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:
“What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just that shall man be for the superman: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Under the one word “house” are included the schoolhouse, the almshouse, the jail, the tavern, the dwellinghouse; and the meanest shed or cave in which men live contains elements of all these. But nowhere on the earth stands the entire and perfect house.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)