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Published: September 19th 2007
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Obfuscator writes: We enjoyed a typical continental breakfast at our motel in Rexburg, before departing for the north. Waffles are good. We had scoped out a couple of potential spots, using the motel's tourism material in the room. One site they mentioned was “The Civil Defense Caves.” The only directions we got from the material was that they were “several miles past the Sand Dunes,” which we had luckily found the day before, and that we should watch for the signs. Another was Cave Falls, in the southwest corner of Yellowstone, a part of the park available only from Idaho.
We drove about 15 miles past the Sand Dunes without finding any signs to any caves. At that point we decided that if they were still around, they weren't this far out, and we turned around. On our way back, we encountered a sea of sheep heading toward us. I stopped the car and let them wash over us in a wave of bahhing and wool. It was surreal.
We drove for a few more miles, and saw a post with no signage right next to a road. Since it was the only thing even close to what we
might have been looking for, we pulled off. It was a good thing we did, since once we stopped, we found a plywood sign laying in the dirt, with some rough directions scrawled on it in pencil. We did our best to follow them, while also driving the incredibly rough road and eventually arrived at the Civil Defense Caves. The caves are basically a big scar in the surrounding slightly hilly land, and there's no markers or anything. Definitely not an official area attraction.
We rigged ourselves up with camelbacks and flashlights, and descended into the caves. You could immediately tell you were caving, since it was considerably colder in the cave than outside. The caves are pretty clearly used, and have been for some time, by the local kids. We encountered graffiti and expended glowsticks as far back into the cave as we went. The cave is really big though, and pretty neat. A lot of it has been leveled (presumably for Civil Defense purposes?), so is fairly easy walking. Some of it was a bit craggy though, and we did have to pick our footing in a fair number of places. Mostly it was very open and
we stood with comfort, though in a few spots we had to do a bit of a hunched walk. We tried the total cave darkness thing, which was pretty fun, and we discovered that many of the glow sticks that were littering the cave floor were still active. I can only speculate that this was a combination of recent activity and the cold temperatures in the cave. We followed the main cavern to its terminus, but there was a side branch that I had to really worm my way into, that kept going deeper than we cared to delve. That was partly because by this point we had already been inside for quite a while, and because past that choke point, the ceiling seemed to get quite a bit lower, and we didn't really want to continue on our hands and knees. We figured that the cave (as far as we went anyway) must have extended at least 300 meters.
Because this was rather a pain to find, we decided to take more detailed notes and write them and the GPS coordinates on the board by the post, which won't really help anyone find the turnoff in the first
place, but whatever. In case any of you find yourself in the neighborhood and want to see them, the directions go as follows: From St. Anthony, follow the signs to the Sand Dunes. 6.4 miles past the Sand Dunes parking lot, on your right, there will be a small dirt and gravel road at 44º 06.273 N, 111º 48.277 W. Follow the main road for about 4.8 miles, and then veer left when the road forks. Go another mile to 44º 09.327 N, 111º 46.551 W. Park there, and you probably won't be able to miss it.
After we spent more time there than I anticipated, we got back on the road, and drove up to a little town called Ashton, where we had to turn off to get to the Cave Falls in Yellowstone. After a couple of miles, we got to the part where the gravel road started. That gravel road must have continued for about 12 miles....which wasn't terrifically fun to drive. Cave Falls is about 35 feet tall, and has some pretty cascades. We hiked around the area a bit, and saw the cave for which it was named. Honestly, although we didn't regret it
per se, I wouldn't recommend the detour to anyone, unless they want to do some serious backcountry hiking and camping. There are some tall, probably awesome falls in the vicinity, but we didn't have it in us to go for them as they were all 10 or more mile hikes.
From there, we cruised up to the West Entrance to Yellowstone, and headed back in to see Tower Falls. On our way in, we passed a bald eagle. Tower Falls itself was pretty, but not as amazing as the Lower Falls we had previously seen. The path that would have taken us to the base of the falls was also closed, so we could only really see the falls from the one vantage point, which was a bit disappointing. What wasn't disappointing was that on our way to Tower from the West Entrance, we ran into a many car backup which, astonishingly, wasn't for a bison or an elk. This time, it was a mother Grizzly Bear and two of her cubs. They were within 150 feet or so of the road, mostly up from us on the mountain side. They were seemingly unconcerned with us, or any of
Obfuscator eats caves for breakfast
But that's why they call him "Jaws." the other cars, and were knocking rocks down at us. On the road from Tower to the North Entrance, we also saw a solitary black bear further off, and we continued to see Elk and Antelope until we got outside of the park. North of the park, we saw more deer near the road than I care to contemplate, and we discovered Yankee Jim canyon, the history of which we could not be certain.
As we drove on to Bozeman, it started raining, so we weren't too thrilled at the camping prospects, and got a decent motel room at a decent price there, where we chilled for the rest of the night.
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