cascade mountains, lava tube, lost lake, oregon

Kwoneksamach, the Lake That Disappears Every Year

Every year, an entire lake just disappears. Native Americans in the Cascades region call this place Kwoneksamach, or “unknown.” Up in the mountains of Oregon approximately two hours southeast of Portland is where this mysterious lake sits. The first documented accounts by European Americans said that they had found it difficult to find their way, so they named the lake “Lost Lake” ...

Troy Oakes

A lava tube draining the water out of Lost Lake.

Team Discovers Ancestral Puebloans Survived Ice Melt in Lava Tube

For more than 10,000 years, the people who lived on the arid landscape of modern-day western New Mexico were renowned for their complex societies, unique architecture, and early economic and political systems. But surviving in what Spanish explorers would later name El Malpais, or the “badlands,” required ingenuity now being explained for the first time ...

Troy Oakes

A large lave tube.