I visited 9 caves today at Lava Beds National Monument, 8 of them unlighted. This is a collection of photographs of the entrance areas to those 8 caves! Further in, it is pitch black with the only illumination being by flashlight or cell phone!

The first few photos are from Valentine, so named as it was discovered on Valentine's Day. Its an interesting lava tube with portions where the tunnels split in two and merge further down. It starts out rather large but as you progress further it gets smaller.

Not all of the easy caves have much of a route through them - many of them only just go to the entrance. A few have petroglyphs inscribed into the lava rocks. And one had a frozen ice floor down below - its that cold! Unfortunately, the icy portion is not open for visitation as it has degraded.

The Sentinel cave is interesting - the only one in the park that is open for visitation with two entrances. Its an interesting walk through!