Ape Cave and Lava Canyon

Last saturday was supposed to be in the mid to high 90s here in portland. My siblings in Texas are probably mocking  me, but that is just TOO HOT for my little Oregon frog children. So I trying to think of something to do that would take us from the heat. I've been wanting to take Kyle up to the Ape Cave since we moved back up here. What better place to hide from the heat than underground!? So we packed up the kids and headed north. The Ape Cave is a lava flow tunnel almost directly south of Mount St Helens just outside of Cougar WA. about 2 hours north of Beaverton. There are two branches of it, one which is easy, and the other which is harder. We obviously took the lower and easier cave. (Poor Kyle was champing at the bit to try the upper cave, but the kids weren't game and I didn't want to wait with the kids for the 2.5 hours it takes to hike it. So alas, he will have to come back)
Kate and Tyler were pretty apprehensive about going down into the cave. While I think the entrance is really pretty, I can also see how someone could see it as menacing. It didn't help that we forgot the flashlights in the car so Kyle had to run back and get them leaving us at the mouth of the cave for ten minutes. Ten minutes is just long enough to stew over how scary the cave looks. I think the kids (Kate especially) would have done better if we had just gone straight into the cave. We gave Kate and Ty a nice little pep talk and headed down. We had individual flash lights, but if we do it again I think we will make sure to have a lantern. Especially with really little kids like Tyler around. The cave is pitch black (obviously) and there is no way that you could do the cave without a light source. The cave floor is really bumpy and uneven in some places; Tyler is a pretty athletic and able kid, and he had a bit of a hard time with it.
Poor Tyler was still a little scared once we got in the cave, but I offered to hold his hand, and we set him up with a glow stick on his back pack and a flashlight for him to hold (the backpack glow stick was so that in the off chance he wandered off in the cave he would be easier to find.) Considering he had a death grip on Kyle or my hand the entire time I don't think we needed to worry lol.  I would guess that the standard dimensions in the cave were 15-20 high and 10-15 feet wide. So not too squishy or claustrophobic.  The bigger boys were in heaven. We had to keep calling them back because they would charge ahead in their eagerness to explore. No fear there.
After the caves we decided to head up the road a bit more to Lava Canyon which the nice Parks lady was telling us about. Its a lava flow field that has a large creek (or a river by utah standards lol) that runs through it. Can we say GORGEOUS!!! Kyle wanted to do the lower loop of the trail, but it was a bit too steep/scary for the kids, so we hung out at a bridge and threw rocks in the creek while Kyle checked out the trail. The trail on the far side of the stream was easier so we headed down that side to the suspension bridge.  The bridge was built back in the '90s, but they just refurbished it. I would guess it was at least fifty feet above the creek. Each of the kids walked across it one by one (it was really bouncy/swaying) and then we turned around and went back over it again. All the kids were super stars and crossed the bridge on their own without freaking out.  Which is really quite a feat since I know quite a few grown ups who wouldn't do it lol.
All and all it was a great day. I think everyone fell down at least once, but they shook it off and went about the day. There were no freak outs, and on a whole everyone got along well (which sadly is a rarity at our house lately lol.)  It was probably one of my favorite Saturdays from the entire summer.