“The rich,” writes Michael Olmert, a professor at the University of Maryland, “have a great influence on history.” Where they live and the things they own “dominate what we know about the past simply because good things outlast the vernacular and the ephemeral,” he writes in his book “Milton’s Teeth and Ovid’s Umbrella.”
“Graffiti defeats that in one fell swoop,” he adds, “hitchhiking on the walls of the good to bring to light an alternative past.”
Nowhere in eastern Idaho is that democratic sentiment more evident than a cold, dusty, graffiti-strewn lava tube buried under a sun-scorched field dotted with brown shards of broken beer bottles. In recent decades, graffiti artists have covered the basalt walls of 17-Mile Cave with names, dates, images, and love notes.
and monsters My son’s favorite.
Colloquially, 17-Mile Cave is located just 400 feet south of US Highway 20, about 17 miles west of downtown Idaho Falls, ID, at a location marked with an Idaho “Elephant Hunters” historical marker. Park at the marker exit or along the dirt road that circles a dimple in the landscape to the south. In that dimple is the entrance to the cave.
The location, size and composition of the cave make it a great place to pique the interest of aspiring cavers, no matter how young. Michelle and I took our three children: Liam, 7, Lexie, 5, and Isaac, 2 ½, to the cave for their first caving adventure.
Of course, given the nature of children (especially literal-minded five-year-olds who believe their mothers when they are told to let daddy go into the cave first, breathing cold air like a huge refrigerator, to check for bears ) his first adventure did not come without tears. A dozen meters from the cave entrance, our two young men want to get out. (My wife, Michelle, took them out. They waited a half hour for us in the van. And on the way home, she added to our daughter’s literal mindset this story: “I told Lexie to put her flashlight on the ground so she could see the lights.” rocks on the way out,” she said. Instead of shining the light at the ground, she put the flashlight down and walked away. Mom quickly straightened her up.)
Liam, however, is willing to continue. He and I keep walking, him in the lead, his flashlight sending a random roving circle of light across the walls, floor, and ceiling.
The cave is an easy hiking experience, with the entrance being the most difficult aspect. Adults and tall children have to crouch down and climb up a short series of natural lava rock steps, a distance of no more than 12 feet, before the cave opens up enough to stand. From there, it’s only a half-mile hike to the end of the cave, requiring only stooping for two additional short stretches. As the cave does not branch off, there is no chance of getting lost, although the interior is absolutely dark when not seen from the entrance.
A natural rock fall followed by the cave’s main turn quickly obscures the entrance and light entering the cave. For the most part, the cave is a dozen meters wide and easily ten feet tall, although there is one chamber where the cave widens to at least twenty meters wide and easily thirty feet tall, enough room for a party. impromptu football, if you feel like it. I have brought enough light.
A cave teaches a seven-year-old about tranquility. Halfway through, I cut off Liam’s talk, telling him to tell me what he could hear:
In the distance, a drip. . .drip. . .drip. . .
“Someone left the faucet running, Dad.”
Sure, sound.
A little closer: “Errrrr, rerrrr, rerrrr, rerrrrrrrr.”
“Is that a monster?”
“Don’t think so, son. Someone else in the cave has a flashlight like us.” I twist the handle on our rechargeable light and it makes the same noise. “Do you hear your echo?”
“HELLO!” he screams into the darkness, shining his flashlight all around him as if trying to follow the echo of his scream.
Then we see lights ahead.
“Hello! Who’s that? What’s your name? Did you see any monsters?” he yells, and the echoes crash into each other like bumper cars.
No monsters. Just a family hanging out, followed by their curious and friendly black lab.
We keep walking, with the understanding that while a cave can teach about tranquility, that lesson is not necessarily heard through the barrage of questions typical of young people.
Is there still lava in the cave, Dad? (On the way to the cave, I talked about how, thousands of years ago, the cave was formed when a river of lava flowed underground, then subsided, leaving the cave behind.)
No, there is no wash, sound.
How long is it?
Long enough, sound.
Is the cave going to fall on us?
Better not. Your mom would be mad at me if she did.
What happens if we turn off our flashlights?
Try it.
it does. For about two seconds, we’re engulfed in darkness, so no tent built of blankets and driftwood by a seven-year-old hoping to sleep under the stars will match it.
Turn your light back on, illuminate me. “I thought she had lost my dad,” she said. “But there you are.”
Are there monsters, dad? Besides the bears, I joke that the cave is home to the wookalar, my favorite movie monster.
“Let’s find out,” I tell him.
Right after the Echo Chamber, my name for the largest room in the cave; I’m not sure, in twenty-five years of visiting this cave, if any of the features have official names: the ceiling on the left sinks back to less than three feet from the ground. A long time ago, a vivid imagination saw the mouth and eyes of a monster, something akin to a brontosaurus, peeking out of that formation. So they painted the rock to add a bit of definition to their imagination.
“Monster face!” my son screams-whispers, as I shine the light on the monster’s neon-painted features. (A few dedicated souls touch up the painting every year, making sure the monster’s vivid leer is there for future cave-goers.)
It holds its own light, blinding the monster should it decide to come back to life. The mist of her breath reflects off the beam. “Smoke Monster!” he whispers. (The monster smoke, at least this time, is pretty thick, blowing into the underground clouds whether we’re breathing or not. It pops up in the images, giving the glowing rock, flash-lit faces, and luminous paint a still-yet-like feel.) creepier as we climb underground with the monsters watching us with their yellow eyes.)
The monster is the least of the cave’s graffiti, all shockingly rated G, at least to the uninitiated. Scrawled on the walls are messages from former cave dwellers, ranging from the mundane: “Stop Graffiti,” “GET OUT” (with arrows pointing in opposite directions), and “Dyslexicz of Idaho Untie!” — to the amusing — “Abandon hope, ye who enter here” — to the cleverly cryptic — “Being the Adventures of One Uther Smith”, accompanied by a drawing of a pale, somber young man with a goal. Uther is, of course, up to date. He comes with his own URL: biminicomics.com. He is a freshly printed comic book hero, introduced to the world in the spring of 2007 at the San Francisco Center for the Book.
“The story is deeply rooted in that region of Idaho,” said Brandon Mise, a former Idaho Falls resident who wrote the comic with illustrator John Murphy and colorist Nye Wright. “I wanted the people there to know that soon they will have a local hero to root for.” The comic, although set in Pocatello, draws heavily from easily recognizable locations in Idaho Falls.
While researching locations for the comic, partially set at Mise’s uncle’s local potato farm, the trio heard about the cave “and came back the next day, armed with a backpack full of spray paint,” Mise said.
So everyone enjoys 17-Mile Cave. Except my youngest son and daughter, of course, but they’re still young. This place turns heads, even from some North Carolina-based authors who indulge in a bit of literal underground advertising in a cold cave on the edge of the Lost River desert. What future historians can do with it is anyone’s guess.
A note to aspiring graffiti artists:
I want it to be noted here. I’m not advocating graffiti, certainly not in this cave. Those who go to this cave need to know that it is on private property and that the property owner has been very kind over the years to allow people to climb into his natural basement, paint cans in hand or without her. But since the walls are covered in graffiti, I write about it. As penance, every time I go there, I grab a garbage bag and clean up some of the debris left by other cave dwellers.
