A sign indicated that these were “America’s oldest double gravity pumps,” dating from 1928.
Deep into the canyon, as we entered the national park itself, the hot and sunny weather suddenly became overcast. In the bottom of the canyon near the campsites, it rained on us. The rain felt good, as it had been quite hot before.
It was an odd experience to see manzanita after driving downhill. Usually, we hike, drive or ride up through a forest and then find ourselves in a chaparral environment with manzanita. But we had come down from 2,000 m (6,500 ft) at Grant Grove to only 1,403 m (4,603 ft) at Cedar Grove. We’d gone above the chaparral into a different environment and come back down into it.
We made sure to drive all the way to the end of the road before turning around and heading back up.
We had enjoyed the Crystal Cave so much that we had contemplated stopping at Boydon Cavern, about halfway between Grant and Cedar Groves, on the way down. We stopped to check it out at 2:45, and saw that the next (purportedly 45-minute) tour was at 3:00, and decided we did not have enough time. But on the return trip, when we found ourselves approaching Boydon Cavern just a bit before 4:00, we decided to stop to see if we could take the 4:00 tour. Our eyes were so wide with wonder at all of the sights around us that we felt we didn’t want to miss anything, even if it meant eating Subway sandwiches in the car for dinner. Sure enough, we were able to take the tour and see another pretty cave.
On to Boydon Cavern.