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An overnight camping trip to Oregon Caves was a crazy idea. Driving over 400 miles each day on consecutive days was nutty simply because the drive would consume almost eight hours as parts of the freeway were narrow and winding. However, the trip was promised last summer. When my son and I came back from our even more grueling trip to Columbia River Gorge, we took the side way from Grants Pass, Oregon, to Crescent City, California, via the fantastic scenic drive, Route 199. Midway to Crescent City we passed by Cave Junction. That was where we noticed the preeminent sign of Oregon Caves National Monument. Being an 11 year old my son jumped at the idea of going underground of fantastic forms and shapes. As a matter of fact, he wanted to go right away. Only it was late in the afternoon and a long drive of over 400 miles was still ahead of us. As a compromise we promised ourselves to come back later.
Oregon Caves nestles in the Siskiyou National Forest that covers a large territory across the border of Oregon and California. The Caves may have been the main attraction of this year's trip; in the past year I have been fielding the call from the magnificent country of the expansive redwood forests, numerous rivers and creeks, mountains big and small, the ocean and its many beaches and rocks. Maybe there was also a philosophical angle here. I once felt bamboozled when I visited Dunsmuir, California. Also part of the Siskiyou National Forest, the scenery there was even more extravagant than that around the Oregon Caves area as Mount Shasta a volcano rose more than 12,000 feet above the sea. The fulsome Sacramento River came into form from many of its forks there amidst myriad waterfalls, and spectacular mountain peaks and wooded gorges. Yet, folks at Dunsmair seemed to have grown blind to wondrous sights around them. When we were there, they couldn't stop marveling about their trips to Paris and Cancun, and even San Francisco where we came from. I understood that one's backyard can become old and lose its charm over time. But why do folks go such a length to just skim through some overly hyped places afar while equally, if not more so, tantalizing spots nearby are grossly ignored or even looked down upon? I don't know for sure but I doubted that a small country in Europe had more spectacular scenic spots than the fabulous State of California. Maybe it's damn genetic that immigrants all alike, white, black, yellow, or brown, fantasize and secretly worship their ancestral land. It's not in our habit to take inventory of our own genetic codes. Only I am convinced that somewhere love for the land one lives on now has to be an immense virtue. Perhaps I am cheap, a low budget traveler; but, I seem to get more joy trekking in the less traveled areas than the typical touristy spots. I wonder if it's too far-fetched to call such mentality an idiosyncrasy with Chinese characteristics. Of course not, I can only speak for myself that nature is too grand to be disrespected in whatever way.
Anyway, it was late in August. The fog along the coast in this particular Friday morning was heavy and all-enshrouding. It was actually a blessing in the disguise because too much sunlight could make driving and riding a bit strenuous. We had too long to go. After fighting through some urban traffic congestions, the US101 took us out of the San Francisco Bay Area, all the while the coastal fog didn't yield an inch to robust August sunshine until somewhere past Ukiah, the northern tip of the Bay Area. All of a sudden, brilliant sunlight highlighted the dry grasses of rolling hills, farm land and cows and towns of less known names, typical of California landscape in the summer.
Willits, a mid-sized lumber town, came into view hanging a huge sign over the freeway claiming itself as the Gateway to the Redwoods with audacious pride. Redwoods the magnificent trees are the royalty among trees, the oldest living things on earth as they say, simply because some 2000 years old trees keep going with grace. Those are the tallest trees on the surface of the earth, reaching over 350 feet. It is magical that the redwoods only thrive on a narrow strip along the coast of Northern California. Redwoods are more graceful in my eyes than the massive but slightly shorter and stouter sequoias in the inland of California. Do not take narrow strip literally here. Once you drive into the National and State Redwood Parks in Northern California, the car or even a freight train becomes a miniature fish swimming in a vast sea of redwood forests. The ever-expansive forest dwarfs people, automobiles and even mountains. Yet, the giant trees of wonderful balance and posture exhibit a grace of gentleness to the land of rock, red earth, fog and sea breezes. The sight can be both solemn and exhilarating if one could make the connection with such a great life. The cool temperature along the Pacific slows the down the growth of the giants so the trees could build itself up deliberately and masterfully on a solid foundation through the millennia. Dynasties may have fallen; pompous discoverers may have come and gone; native tribes may have been slaughtered; human cries and moans may have been temporarily silenced nearby; species may have become extinct; plastic may have been invented; civilization may have deteriorated into obesity and laziness ... but through them all the graceful giants stand its ground to greet the daily dim or fierce sunlight, occasional thunder and lightning, and marching through the long corridor of time with calm and confidence. Yes, they call the long stretches of the old single lane highway or the scenic bypass the Avenue of the Giants. To me this avenue was a cathedral, the corridor of worship. If I am allowed my choices, I choose to worship grace, calm, humility, and of course love. Only love can put a living thing at ease. I don't mean false love for things grotesque. Love is more palpable than one thinks it's possible, a reminder by the gigantic and also silent redwoods, if one cares to travel there and opens one's heart to those trees.
It was so awesome that the redwood forest was endless; for before our notice the freeway veered toward the sea and led us to the splendid Humboldt Coast. After Eureka, US 101 traced the edge of the Pacific, as mammoth black sand beaches simmered in the fog to greet waves crashing onshore from the Ocean. Seagulls, pelicans, and other exotic birds dove into the water and walked ashore in their awkward and graceful ways. By the freeway we spot a sizeable horde of giant elks resting and chewing away in the coolness of the misty sunlight as if to savor the spirit of the ocean. The world there was a spectacular oil painting. Our car became a dot or a grain of sand in the large scheme of landscape. But I felt great and willing to be blended in and become lost into the wholeness of such extravaganza in absolute silence. Life, indeed, has its moments of glory.
The gas price was horrendous. When we left the Bay Area, the lowest grade of gas cost $2.98 per gallon. Up north some stations had $3.75 over their pumps. We gassed up at Eureka for a measly $3.21 and actually felt good. It was silly because we felt depressed a year ago when the gas price reached $1.65 per gallon.
The commercialization of the world was definitely an eyesore in the beautiful expansion of the woods. Indian folk art of tree carving had been taken into mass production as bears, big-foot, small squirrels, and other things were carved from precious redwood for ridiculous amounts. Just before Crescent City, there was this ghastly joint, the Trees of Mystery, an establishment that paddles the tall tales of Paul Bunyan and other folklores. Still, the beauty of the redwoods irons them all out. I was absolutely convinced that the skytrail at this semi-serious commercial adventure could take a person with true heart to a magnificent height to overlook the sweeping view of the out-of-this-worldly Klamath National Forest and its million acres of giant redwoods. Nature heals because of its innate love and grace. Time was short; we had to move on without too much a bother with the superficial.
When the road wound around the mountains, it was often the rivers that paved the way. So many rivers helped the US 101 cut through the mountains of giant redwoods. We tangled a little while with the Russian River around Ukiah; soon the Eel River came up from nowhere to crisscross the freeway for many miles. The Klamath River and many other little creeks and streams rush towards the Pacific under the freeway. Water contains the highest virtue in the world. Those thousand years old wisdom remains true today. Water has all of us, people, trees, plants and flowers, and animals, made. It's water that brings this planet endless supply of beauty and grace.
A couple of miles north of Crescent City, we switched to Route 199 the scenic drive that made the heart pump with joy for the past year. The scenery remained similar to that of US 101 as both are dubbed as Redwood Highways with almost identical scales and surroundings. Slowly the coolness of the Pacific Coast was losing its gentle grasp, though the tall redwoods still provided soothing shades in late summer. Soon after the Smith River and its many valleys, peaks and rocks burst into the scene, the hot inland temperature started to flood in and envelope everything and everyone in, to remind us that summer was still sizzling in our world. It was past 4 in the afternoon. We were in a hurry to make it to the Oregon Caves Visitor's Center at Cave Junction before the center was closed for Friday thus left quite a few vista points and beaches and lagoons for the day after. We made it in time, arriving at the Visitor's Center at 4:15. We were told that both the Visitor's Center and the Caves all opened until 7 in the afternoon. There were plenty of camping sites available, too, at a couple of campgrounds run by the Oregon Caves Outfitters. Grayback and Cave Creek were both gorgeous campgrounds with flush toilets and tall pine trees and a river-like creek. But until then we had no idea of such a favorable situation because both campgrounds don't take reservations and run on first come and first serve basis. Maybe I have the inclination to take risks sometimes.
Another 11 miles of narrow roads which they call the Caves Highway, we arrived at the Grayback Campground. Because there were so many sites available, we could afford the luxury to choose one by the creek, not too far or too close to the restrooms, either. In many other campgrounds we had no choice but to take what was left. We paid and filled up the form to mark our territory. Unpacking had to wait as there was still a little bit over one hour and a half to take a tour of the Caves.
Another 8 miles of winding around the hills, we were up in the depth of the Siskiyou National Forest where the Oregon Caves resided. The first impression was the massiveness of the rocks. Rocks made mountains tall and gorges deep. The six story Oregon Caves Chateau in this deep gorge only had its roof shown to visitors from the roadside. The Cave Creek Gorge was so deep and the trees so tall that it appeared bottomless in the tired eyes of a traveler. A little stream trickling out of the Caves simply disappeared into the gorge to grow into a full-blown creek in the size of a healthy river.
The office was a little above the Chateau on the other side of the driveway. This place was declared a National Monument by the Taft Administration in the late 1800s. The State of Oregon and the federal government had put in a lot of effort and money through the years as the place appeared well built and maintained in an American way, sturdy and a little extravagant but not overly decorative, in comparison to those Buddhist or Taoist establishments in China and Japan.
The crowd of the visitors was just beginning to thin out at this hour. Yet we didn't catch the 6 o'clock guided tour because it was booked out as each tour could only take 12 visitors. They put us on the 6:30 group, the last guided tour of the day before the 7 o'clock candlelight exploration for the brave and adventurous.
I decided not to go into the caves. I have been to caves and caverns in other parts of the world. There was nothing that interested me, except exposing the mild claustrophobia in me. Underground caves make me feel uneasy thus flatten the sense of excitement. I didn't welcome the news that some stretches of the caves here required visitors to bend their backs 45 degrees forward in order to climb up and down.
Left alone, I started to follow the trails uphill above the caves. It was a superlative self-guided tour because of my passion for tall trees and bulky mountains. The evening light penetrating through leaves and forest brought out exceptional colors and delight. A sea of mountain peaks expanded the view from green into blue towards the horizon. The trail was paved with asphalt for quite some distance. A neatly constructed log railing made the trail very pleasant to look at and walk on. So, I danced on and clicked away with my camera here and there. When the trail zigzagged its way out of the Caves area, the asphalt ended and dirt and rocks made it rougher. But it was more real this way. A trail thus became a trail. I had noticed massive rocks in pure white when we first parked the car. But the rocks though protuberant were not prominent at the gorge area because large patches of moss, in their golden color, covered most of the rock surfaces. The trail led up to more and more of the marvelous whiteness and purity of the rocks that was the unique feature of this particular mountain. At one point a huge wall of large chunks of pure white marble stood in front of me as if to make a loud pronouncement. With the reflection of the evening sunlight, the rock made its case of preciousness. I was alone and the entire world was in awe. There I was penetrated by a resounding voice. A presence it was, rather, so special. Sometimes a presence doesn't have to be a person. The marble here is alive. In such a presence, living things can be so ordinary.
It was said that the plate of the ocean (the Pacific Plate) and the plate of land clashed with each other eons ago. Humanly inconceivable pressure and heat melted and purified the rocks beneath. The rising of lava and molten rocks together with water had created a few chunks of marble, diamond-like rocks different from their previous state of existence, ordinary limestone. Chunks of marble in the sizes of mountains rose up in the process of mountain making. Then rotten woods and plants released carbon dioxide. CO2 and water created acidified solutions that dissolved some of the rocks and other less steady materials. Thus the caves were created and later discovered by people for recreational values. Thus we came, to camp here, to visit and to marvel.
Marble making is an awe-inspiring process. It reminds me of all the rare elements and possibly life itself on Earth were all cooked up in the phantasmagorical celestial explosion called supernova. Colossal events in our universe smash everything and itself (in the size of a few millions of Planet Earth) apart and blow many things into smoke, into oblivion; in the process it also meshed certain things into mind-boggling forms and shapes. At the end the world gained extra dimensions and complex species were made. Such evolution is still unfolding in front of our eyes and will go on beyond our own existence. Life is an accident in this universe and yet we have the ability to perceive.
Marble is rare. Chunks of marble stand out amidst many other types of rock after millions of years. They bear nature's demarcation. I suppose only true substance with excellence could become great marvel, naturally so. Everything else fell apart, cracked, darkened, blown up, evaporated, trembling and crying. After all, the heat was too cruel and the water was too deep. Survival was impossible as only transformation was allowed. Metamorphosis was imposed, not chosen. Only a few are allowed to come through, in more solid form than before. The rest is eliminated and discarded. There is definitely a human parallel of such process. A watershed event, be it a damn revolution, a stupid political movement, a natural disaster, or even a parental divorce, had sisters and brothers scattered to all directions. At the end, not only Buddhas and Bodhisattvas were made but monsters of society were also born out of hate and revenge ...
The Caves visitors came out happy and excited. But I doubted they reached the height I just did above a mountain of marbles.
Anyway, it was late. The tent was pitched by the Creek. The grill was going, food tasted delicious. We splashed up a few ripples in the creek water to wash off some of the dust and heat. It was too dark to swim in the waterhole upstream. That would be heaven on earth. But sleeping by the gurgling creek was definitely soothing to the body as no audio tapes of recorded natural sounds were needed for this particular night.
Since the tour of the Caves was out of our way, the next day was much easier in terms of scheduling. There was time to stop at any vista point we liked along the way. We could run any beach that was appealing. One could only find the Humboldt Coast in one's dreams, so romantic and so misty. The ocean was magic. We even had time to take a grand tour of the Avenues of the Giants and stopped by a water hole to soak in and wash off the heat and dust gathered along the incredibly long drive. Driving through a tree, a redwood tree of course, was the last highlight of the day. Through all the fun, another 400 plus miles, we still got back home around 8:30, before the total nightfall. The body may be fatigued but the memory was worth a life time or two.
August 25-26, 2006 |
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