We spent yesterday scrambling through the canyons at the head of Tantalus Creek looking for a couple more sites documented by Morss in his 1931 monograph. We were not completely successful, but did certainly find our way to "Site 16." According to Morss, the cave had originally been fronted by a wall of "cedar" woven with willow and daubed with mud. By the late 1920s, the construction of the Bowns Reservoir had raised the water table, filling the cave with seeps and springs, and causing the roof to collapse.
He noted that there were 20 feet of undamaged wall at the east end of the cave when he visited the site. As you can see, above, the eastern roof has fallen, too, and the only thing remaining are a few pieces of juniper that originally supported the "cedar" wall. The cave is now a swamp, filled with willow and river birch. For me, the highlight of the afternoon was checking out this beautiful old ponderosa that we found growing on the rim of the canyon.
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