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Skeleton Cave Members of the Boy Scout Troop 163 from Corvallis, Oregon traveled South of Bend on 21 March 1998 to what was to have been a 2 night trip in the desert area to explore some caves and do some bike riding. While things didn't quite go according to plan, we had a good time.

We had 10 kids Jeff d, John d (guest), John-Paul D, Nick H, Tero L (guest), Derek M, Thomas R, Conrad S, Dan S, and Jeremy T. In addition, we had 4 adults: Dolf d, Kevin H, Dave R and Don S.

	This is Jeff d's first camping trip with the scout troop.	A number of people were busy playing a game of stickball.
	Skeleton cave and Boyd cave are lava tubes which formed after a stream of lava froze over the top, and then the lava ran out. Skeleton cave got it's name due to fossils which fell into the cave from some of the places where rocks had fallen loose from the ceiling.
	We were camped near the entrance to Skeleton cave. As you can see from the type of plants, this place isn't used to lots of rain; I think the area received a month's worth of rain on this weekend, but we had a fire going to keep warm.
	On Sunday we went to the nearby Boyd cave. It is also a lava tube. The floor of this cave was much rougher than Skeleton cave.
	A number of the kids needed to be back in town on Sunday, and the rest felt that the rain was a bit much and so spent the rest of Sunday exploring the local area and then called it a weekend. A picture book of the cave that was presented at the troop meeting is at: Lechuguilla Cave. There has been controversy about climbing within these caves. See the following for more information Cave Vandalism from Sport Climbing

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