Last summer I took an amazing little hike with my cousins to a unique and little known Idaho gem of a cave. It is a collapsed lava tube. The ferns growing in the ring are remnants left from the passing of the last ice age. I don’t think there are any native ferns for at least a couple hundred miles in any direction from this location. The surface is an arid lava desert, typical of southern Idaho, the complete antithesis to the damp and cool cave interior.
I was overwhelmed with how magical it felt. I could easily imagine The Grail or Excalibur hovering in mystical light over the center of the fern ring, or that I had fallen into a story in which the traveler finds himself inside a fairy mound. Simply, an amazing journey.
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