The Siskiyou Mountains in southern Oregon define a large part of the border with California and there are caves inside some of those mountains, the most famous being the National Monument, Oregon Caves south and west of Grants Pass where I was raised. Marble Mountain, in the foot hills of the Siskiyous, a few miles south of our home, was the site of an open pit mine that produced a mineral used in making cement. The father of one of my school friends worked at the mine and told my friend that a recent blasting of rock had uncovered an entrance to a cave.
Imagine that. A cave. Like in Tom Sawyer. Time to make some plans, I told my two pals, the Wardrip brothers, Bob and Lee. Bob and I were 12 and Lee was two years older. The excitement of exploring a real cave grew the more we talked about it and so our plan:
We knew the owners of the mine would not welcome our visit, so we would go up the mountain on a Sunday. We had a large ball of kite string we would feed out from the entrance so as to not get lost in the caverns. We had my father's railroad lantern. What could go wrong?
On an early Sunday morning we rode our bikes to where the mine access road started up the mountain. The steep slog to the landing was about two miles but we reached it by mid-morning and soon spotted what had to be the entrance to the cave. The mine crew had put railroad ties against the rock wall face to seal the opening and we easily removed them. What we uncovered was not encouraging.
The opening started about three feet up at a 45% slash that went another 10 feet and stopped. The entrance was shaped like a hinged lid being lifted off a box with no opening on the left but about 15 or 20 inches on the right. Shining the light into the hole we could see a flat shelf that went a few feet and then dropped off into a large, dark, cavern. "Well," I said, "You're the oldest, Lee, so you go first."
"No," Lee said, "We've got to be smart about this. Bob's the smallest so he should wiggle in and see what it looks like."
"Not me," Bob said. "This wasn't my idea."
"OK," I said, "You two chickens wait out here. I'll go in."
I started into the hole with my two arms sticking out in front of me, the lantern in my right hand. As I wiggled in, the rock above me got lower and as I had my legs almost all the way in I thought I felt the ceiling coming down and I went into complete terror panic. I think I was screaming as I started violently wiggling, bumping my head, frantically making my escape from the cave.
As I escaped the collapsing mountain that was actually still in stable condition, I sank to the floor of the landing with both of my elbows bruised and bumps on my head. "What the hell are you hollering about?" Lee said to me.
I didn't answer him. Bob said, "I think this was a bad idea. I'm going home."
It was plain that the adventure was over and without more conversation we headed back down the road. We probably should have put the railroad ties back to cover the cave entrance but we didn't.
