7 Stunning Local Wonders You Should Visit This Summer With Kids

You’d expect to find lava tubes in Hawaii or Iceland, but Washington has one of its own, and it’s a good one.

At roughly 3 miles long, the Ape Cave is the third-longest lava tube cave in North America. The two-part Ape Cave formed nearly 2,000 years ago from lava streaming down the southern flank of Mount St. Helens. As the outer edges cooled into a hardened crust, the inner molten lava was able to drain away before it hardened, leaving behind a tube.

The shorter Lower Cave branch is an easy walk, with level floors and a geographic anomaly called the Meatball. The longer Upper Cave branch is a more challenging, but also more interesting, hike, with more variation in topography, a natural skylight and a lava-fall ascent.

The Ape Cave opened for the season on May 18, 2023. Book a two-hour time slot to visit the caves on the Ape Cave reservation site. There is a $2 parking fee per vehicle. Dress warmly, even on a hot summer day, for this underground adventure. Reservations are available beginning April 15, 2023.

Bonus: Blue Lake rhino cave

^{Image credit: Abhinaba Basu/Flickr CC}