Mowich Cave Found

We've been on the hunt for Mowich Cave. We both went once where I stayed in the car and he searched. The next time we both went and searched together.  Then he went once by himself, again with negative results. 

Thursday hubby went back one more time by himself. He finally located the cave! Since I wasn't there he took the camera and all the photos are by him.

He started out a little closer to Clearwater Dam #2. In the previous forays we had started at about .4 miles from the dam and searched eastward. This day he searched going west. 

He decided to take a possible game trail that I had pointed out on a previous visit. (See! Always listen to me!) 

As he got closer to the rock face he noticed some cut branches. It was apparent that someone else had been there and was marking the trail.

The trail was definitely easier to follow here than when I went before. Oh, that's right. When I went there was no trail!

More cut branches.

At one point the trail turned into a fallen giant tree. This is the trail from the bottom looking up.

From the top of the tree trunk trail looking back down.

If you clicked on the links in the previous blog posts about the cave you would see the drawing where there is a big tree in front of the entrance. This is it! (The tall tree, not the shrub in the foreground.)

The entrance to the cave hidden behind a shrubby hemlock.

There's the entrance! Hubby doesn't really know how to work the camera that well so it focused on the tree in front rather than the gated cave entrance in the back.

What a disappointment to see the entrance gated and locked shut. If you click on this picture it should enlarge and you can see the welded marking "USFS 4-9-92". After some research it seems the Forest Service in all their wisdom decided to shut the cave from humans in order to preserve some rarish bat species that was living in it. After the cave had been closed for a while they came back to do a recount and guess what. The bats were gone. I think it must have been too difficult for them to navigate through the slats. Brilliant!

This was taken through the slats. One of the walls in the front hall.

Again, through the slats, the front hall. You can see the cave continuing to the left in the back.

It's too bad that Mowich Cave is closed off now. I would like to go inside and explore a little further. From all accounts it isn't that difficult to walk in, providing you have illumination, of course. Maybe some day we will find out where we can go to get permission and a key, since it is "public property" and I'm part of the public.  If that happens you know I'll be reporting on that adventure!