One of my favorite places in the USA has got to be the State of Oregon: from hundreds of miles of unspoiled beaches with their impressive dunes to snowcapped Mountains and old volcanoes: hardly any state in the US has so much to offer in terms of the great outdoors. Rivers, deserts, endless forests and large numbers of picture perfect lakes await the interested visitor. But the true gem is found underground, near the little town of Bend nature left behind lava-tunnels from volcanic eruptions that happened tens to hundred thousands years ago.
Lava, as most people quickly realize is somewhat on the hot side of the temperature scale. One can bake an egg on the hood of the car in a hot desert but one can bake both (egg and car) on a fresh stream of lava!
Something else is interesting about those (mostly undergournd) lava-streams: the outside cools quicker than the inside (something similar happens with you bowl of soup, although I wouldn’t recommend eating hot lava though). So while the outside quickly cools down to rock again, the inside slowly releases its temperature and when it does: it shrinks. After a while you have a partly filled in tube of lava, the bottom of which is flat and makes for a nice walk if you happen to find a tunnel like that. This website expains it quite nicely by the way.
In the state of Oregon, a few of those tunnels have been so well preserved one can still walk through them. That is, with a professional guide and a helmet of course!
So, how to capture these on film or memory card? It’s pitch-black inside and the helmet lamps are just sufficient to see where you put your feet (after all these years the floor is not as flat as it used to be). A tripod and the combined helmet lights were more than plentiful for some good pictures. Thirty second exposures and having my “models” stand still for that period of time did the job and they got some time to soak in the surroundings. Everybody happy!
So, when in the neighborhood make sure to get in contact with the guys from Wanderlust Tours as they are the only licensed guides for these tunnel complexes.
Oh, and do bring some Mint Lifesavers. You’ll see them spark in the absolute darkness when you bite them hard!
With many thanks:
Wanderlust Tours
Travel Oregon
Seventh Mountain Resort
Lufthansa
And this is what the sky looked like when we got out again, also available as an hi-res wallpaper.
