Lava River Cave was an unplanned adventure as part of my Grand Canyon visit. I planned to spend the day heading up to Snow Bowl and taking the sky ride, but the weather would not cooperate. The thunderstorms prevented us from going up so we headed underground. I am aware that heading underground during rain can be a bad idea, but there was a ranger at the cave entrance and he never even suggested people not enter.
The below map is just from the parking lot to the cave's entrance. The parking lot was a crowded mess, despite being 3 miles off the paved road. I was lucky enough to arrive right as somebody was leaving and park next to the trail. The trail to the cave entrance is well marked and obvious (along the fire road). It wasn't until we arrived at the entrance that we realized how cold it would be in the cave. The average temp is around 40 fahrenheit, so we returned to the car to get long pants and sleeves.
After signing into the registry we made our way in. The first 50 yards was steep, loose and crowded. Once past that its about a mile of easy flat walking to the caves end. The ceiling height varies from about 4 feet up to about 30, but for the most part it is a comfortable 14 feet. At the end there is a pile of rocks and a hole in the lower right just big enough for an average sized person to crawl through. I wiggled my way in but all I saw was about 50 feet of crawling and graffiti, so I just backed out.
The below map is just from the parking lot to the cave's entrance. The parking lot was a crowded mess, despite being 3 miles off the paved road. I was lucky enough to arrive right as somebody was leaving and park next to the trail. The trail to the cave entrance is well marked and obvious (along the fire road). It wasn't until we arrived at the entrance that we realized how cold it would be in the cave. The average temp is around 40 fahrenheit, so we returned to the car to get long pants and sleeves.
After signing into the registry we made our way in. The first 50 yards was steep, loose and crowded. Once past that its about a mile of easy flat walking to the caves end. The ceiling height varies from about 4 feet up to about 30, but for the most part it is a comfortable 14 feet. At the end there is a pile of rocks and a hole in the lower right just big enough for an average sized person to crawl through. I wiggled my way in but all I saw was about 50 feet of crawling and graffiti, so I just backed out.
Looking up at the entrance
Long exposure somewhere near the middle of the cave
The end
-James
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