BEND — Despite the 80 degree weather, everyone carried coats as they gathered on a recent Thursday afternoon outside of Lava River Cave for the U.S. Forest Service’s mandatory orientation. Well, almost everyone.

“Are you sure you don’t have a jacket?” Laken Bosé, education and interpretive programs manager for Discover Your Forest, asked one of the tour participants.

“I might have something in my car,” he responded, skeptically looking at Bosé’s sweatshirt and jacket combination. “Does it really get that cold?”

“It’s 42 degrees year-round in the cave. If you have something, I’d recommend you go get it,” Bosé said.

The man scurried to his car.

Bosé didn’t show it, but she was nervous. This was the first guided tour of Lava River Cave since Discover Your Forest discontinued the service in 2013 due to staffing issues. Since then, guided cave tours were scheduled by request only for school groups, leaving most visitors to make their way through the 1-mile long lava tube near Lava Butte on their own.

But now the tours are back, and Bosé led the inaugural march.

Into the depths of Lava River Cave

As the group descended the steep incline to the mouth of the ancient lava tube, Bosé encouraged everyone to make note of the transition. Step by step the heat of an Oregon late-spring afternoon dissipated, and the air grew thick with moisture.

“Before we descend into the cave, we’ll be entering a very different ecosystem than the one we are in right now, so I wanted to take a moment to really key into our senses here. Focus on the temperature, what we hear, what colors we see,” Bosé said.

For the first half of the 180 metal steps that take the tour to the cave floor, everyone was mostly quiet. They could hear the metal stairs creaking with cold and, gradually, everyone began to believe Bosé when she said the interior of the cave would be cold.

Stalagmites of ice in June don’t lie.

But once the awe of being inside the longest lava tube in Oregon dissipated, Bosé started to be peppered with questions. Where are the bats? Who installed these stairs? How far back does the cave go? Why is the floor covered in sand?

Bosé answered each question in turn. Her first tour was going splendidly.

Promoting greater understanding

Anyone can visit Lava River Cave once the Forest Service clears it for public recreation by purchasing a ticket through Newberry National Monument, Bosé said, but there’s something about having a guide that makes the experience special.

“We have interpretive panels up top, and (the Forest Service) orientations are fantastic, but we really wanted to be able to provide people with a more intimate experience learning about the cave,” Bosé said.

Patsy McGaughy and her husband, Jack Marx, agreed.

They were visiting Bend from Florence, and heard about the tour from a friend who saw Discover Your Forest’s announcement about reopening guided tours. Although the pair have visited other geological landmarks in Central Oregon, it was their first time inside of Lava River Cave.

“I’m so glad we did the tour rather than walk down here ourselves, because I think we would have missed a lot,” said McGaughy.

Even cave veterans like Bosé’s sister, Leah Bosé — who tagged along with the tour to be supportive — said visiting the cave with a guide is a different experience than visiting alone.

“It trips you out, because you learn about it, and you know about it, but to be here and see it in person again … it’s just hard to wrap your brain around,” Leah said. “Then to learn about the ecosystem … it’s cool to put it all into better perspective.”

How to journey into darkness

This summer, Discover Your Forest’s Lava River Cave tours only take place once a week, on Thursdays at 2 p.m. from June 6 through Sept. 5. Bosé told The Bulletin the limited time is only temporary as the nonprofit pilots the tours this summer, with the hope of opening up more time slots next year.

The tours are free, but a $10 donation is encouraged. Flashlights can be rented on-site for $5 and a valid recreation pass — also available on-site — must be purchased in addition to the tour reservation.

Not everyone in the tour is required to spend the full 90 minutes inside the cave, and Bosé gave the group the option to turn back at the halfway mark. But Bosé had captivated her audience so thoroughly that all five participants decided to keep going until the ceiling of the lava tube prevented humans from going any further.

“If you are all open to it — if not, completely fine — but it’s pretty spectacular to turn off all the lights in the cave,” Bosé said.

With the group’s consent, everyone switched off their lights one by one. The darkness was all consuming and the silence deafening. It was a full minute before Bosé turned her light back on, officially ending the tour.