Talk:Ape Cave

Length and status update

After a brief e-mail discussion with persons at the U.S. Forest Service, I was able to nail down the length of Ape Cave more accurately: a recent re-surveying of the cave showed the original length (12,810 feet) to be incorrect, and also placed it as the third-longest (rather than the longest) lava tube in the continental U.S. I have quoted the messages below for the sake of posterity.

ZorkFox: Hello! While doing some reasearch for a Wikipedia article on Ape Cave, I noticed that your Web site lists two different lengths for the lava tube. On the "about us" page, it lists 12,810 feet, while on the Ape Cave home page it reads 13,042 feet. Also in disagreement is the fact of its prominence among lava tubes: one page says it is the longest, the other says it is the third-longerst. Which information is correct?

Teresa: After some resurveying of Ape Cave just a few years ago, it was discovered that the cave is actually 13,042 feet and indeed the third longest cave in the continental US. The second longest cave is in the Mt. Adams area and I do not know where the longest cave is located. I hope this information is useful to you.

Adam: Just to clarify, Ape cave isn't the 3rd longest lava tube in the continental U.S., unless the word 'continuous' used here means the physical length in a straight line from point a to b. Others that are not in a straight line have more miles of passage, but wind and loop over each other and if plotted on a map, would have a shorter width, but longer passageways. It's possible this information came from a website such as: http://www.cob.jp/jsp/english/lavalist-w.html - but this may have mostly 'publicly known' caves. There are many others, that the USGS would have accurate information on, including, for example, Deadhorse Cave, near Trout Lake, WA, which is roughly 9 miles of passage- some continuous, some not, but the continuous flow is longer than Ape Cave, and not even mentioned on that website, for instance. Most cave organizations have access to this complete information.

—ZorkFox 01:10, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Scout Troop Leader?

I might be mistaken, but I seem to remember that the leader of the Scout troop that first explored the Ape Cave was named "Harry Reese" not "Henry Reese". Does anyone have any sources to confirm this? Kbomb 07:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

His name was Harry. He was my grand father. he had the sons! :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.222.55.57 (talk) 08:48, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Length and status update

I will be going up to the Ape Caves this weekend and will verify all info on this page. I will also try to get intouch with someone I know in the USGS that works in the Mt St Helens area. Greasemunkey0119 04:04, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Year of discovery

The body of the article claims that the cave was discovered in 1951, but the year provided in the infobox is 1947. Maybe there are different accounts regarding the discovery of Ape Cave?