Lava Beds National Monument

The caves here are lava tubes. Long ago, lava flowed like a river. The top cooled into a hard roof, the lava inside drained away, and it left an empty tunnel you can walk through.

Deep in a cave it gets very dark. So dark you cannot see your own hand. Bring a headlamp and a backup light. Do not use your phone as your only light.

At Petroglyph Point, people carved thousands of shapes into a cliff. The cliff was once an island in Tule Lake, so the carvings were made from the water.

This is the homeland of the Modoc people. They have lived here for a very long time, and the land still matters to Modoc and Klamath families today.

A Modoc leader named Kintpuash, called Captain Jack, hid his people in the lava rock. About sixty Modoc held off a much larger army for months. The place is now called Captain Jack's Stronghold.

Bats sleep, or roost, inside the cool dark caves during the day. Sixteen kinds of bats live here. The Townsend's big-eared bat is the one you are most likely to see in a cave.

There are almost no town lights out here, so the night sky gets very dark. You can see thousands of stars and the wide band of the Milky Way.

Skull Cave is one of the biggest caves here, wide enough to drive a truck into. Its lowest floor is so cold that a sheet of ice stays frozen there all year, even in summer.

A few caves here trap cold winter air and hold ice all year long. When a ranger shines a light on it, the frozen water can glow like a blue and green waterfall made of ice.

White-throated swifts nest in cracks in the lava cliffs here. These small birds almost never land. They eat, drink, and even sleep while flying.