Oregon Caves National Monument
Posted by: 
silverquill
N 42° 05.891 W 123° 24.445
10T E 466310 N 4660757
Discovered in 1874 by Elijah Davidson, the Oregon Caves became a National Park in 1903. This is actually most used as an exit for guided tours. The original entrance has been blocked. The entire cave is about 3 1/2 miles long.
Waymark Code: WM5VRF
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 02/17/2009
Views: 12
In 1874, while a local man named Elijah Davidson was hunting, his dog Bruno chased a bear into a cave. He lasted only several minutes in the cave, with his seven matches. After they all burnt out though, he had to jump down into the chest-high creek and follow it out. It took him seven hours to escape the cave.
The 3.5-mile (5.6 km) marble cave in the Monument contains one of the largest assemblages of endemic cave dwelling insects in the United States. Recently they have gained notoriety for the Pleistocene jaguar and grizzly bear fossils found in some of the deeper chambers.
The National Park Service conducts a variety of tours during summer. The normal tour takes close to an hour and involves hundreds of steep stairs, but my 86 year-old mother navigated it easily. There are special tours, requiring special gear, through limited access points to deeper parts of the caverns.