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From the Caviing Diaries
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Davis2001R6





Joined: 12 Dec 2003
Posts: 5591
Location: Italy

PostPosted: 11/17/2008, 1:22 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Letty your stories always amaze me. Glad you got out in time!
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Hikngrl
Canyoneering is my 'Happy Place'




Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 5578
Location: Peoria, AZ

PostPosted: 11/17/2008, 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Scary stuff! Perhaps you should get a canary! Glad you made it out safely!
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PageRob





Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 859
Location: Page, Az.

PostPosted: 11/17/2008, 5:47 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Geeze, I get a bit jealous hearing about all this awesome underground action! Look forward to the next installment.
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RedRoxx44
Queen of the Walkabout




Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 1167

PostPosted: 1/12/2009, 6:41 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Made it to the "hidden room" in this cave another caver and I rediscovered some months ago. You can access this only if you are a relatively small flexible person and not claustrophobic. We had crawled back and were talking about the older cavers, how they liked to sometimes bury or hide passages they deemed not fit for the masses.
Low and behold we checked the room and found some broken formations very carefully stacked in a small corner. We carefully removed them, and this tiny delicate room full of aragonite crystal formations and a pool was revealed. I ended up coming out taking my outer clothes off and slithering in a unitard, no helmet through a garden of delicate formations.
I won't be back. Too delicate and too pristine. My partner said "How does it feel to be the second person in there in probably 30 years" -- I said " Incredible, and protective"
We reburied it as best we could, created a small diversion optical illusion and scooted out of there.

In another part of the cave, a climbing class was taking place in a dry pit area. I was gratified to make a climb that a 25 year younger than me rock climber gal fell twice on, she got roughed up as we couldn't protect it by top roping, had to do it laterally and we had some "catchers" at the bottom. So she bumped along but didn't hit hard. My merrill mid cut hikers did well. I also did a ceiling traverse twice that I hate unprotected but with another caver nearby.

A nice half day that I sorely needed.
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wanderingsoul





Joined: 19 Jul 2004
Posts: 2285
Location: Gilbert AZ

PostPosted: 1/12/2009, 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

OH beautiful pics there Letty... Thanks for sharing... I think I'd be claustrophobic in there so I doubt I'd ever see anything like this with my own eyes. Sounds like you had a wonderful day exploring.
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Wanderingsoul (Michelle)

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PageRob





Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 859
Location: Page, Az.

PostPosted: 1/12/2009, 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

What an amazing place!
I need to get underground...
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RedRoxx44
Queen of the Walkabout




Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 1167

PostPosted: 4/27/2009, 10:08 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Got an email, and not just any email " Hey, going to a cave in New Mexico, have room for up to six, want to come along??" This from a guy I met a few years back;he was on the discovery trip whose group was credited for finding perhaps the largest and most unique cave formation known in the world. I zipped back a " hell, yes" and started planning.
Long drive over, I got off early on Fri, picked up another caver, met the other guys and we caravaned with the petal to the metal on I-10.
Had a near blowout ( not me) and stopped in Las Cruces to get another tire. We stopped at a few cafes to eat, great food as recommended by the former natives, then rolled into our campsite in the dark, nicely located in the junipers about 6K within an easy walk to the cave entrance. The cave is gated and controlled by the BLM and local cave conservationists' out of Carlsbad.
We star watched a little then turned in. Next morning courtesy of early light we were in the cave before 8:00 ( early for cavers). It was to be a ten hour day, and we were lucky to be out with still plenty of light. The cave was cool at about 55 degrees, a large entrance, and huge massive walking passage, a packed mud floor, slightly damp, from the residual stream passage. Jumbles of boulders and at times ceiling 40-60 feet tall. Huge rooms. The trail was flagged by reflectors. It was like hiking in a narrow to slot canyon with a roof.
We soon fell into a rhythm. Our permit allowed us to the very back of the cave, which is pretty long. We had two long hands and knees crawls to do, one about 600 feet and one 1500 feet, to allow us to the "pretty" part of the cave.

It was one of the easier caves to negotiate I've been in except where the mud was slick. All of us fell at least once. Small climbs where pretty easy. I had some new knee pads so I smoked all the guys on the crawling sections, I could stoop walk some of it. We squeezed a couple of sections, then we were through to the back. We all had cave maps and that helped a lot.
Then came the WOW factor. The floor, the walls covered in formation, the trail now very restricted. A lot of the formations were covered in cave velvet. They certainly looked soft although no touching. The stalacmites on the floor were raised on flowstone and called "platters" very unique. One side passage held the velvet formations in incredible glowing colors of green , orange, magenta, blues, grays. Some crystalline growth was also noted. The photographers in our group, three of us, had a field day. Our trip leader had been in this cave over 50 times so he was content to observe. We were not allowed this trip to certain areas of the cave. We ran into a small party of surveyors who were going to the area restricted to continue to map. They estimated they would map for about 36 hours and were overnighting in the cave.
We stopped for lunch, a few more side passages, then time to return. It was still fascinating to see the formations at a different angle. In another area the rock was very unusual, not really pretty, but bizarre sculpting.
If we stopped too long we were cold, I had an extra shirt but we were all traveling light to avoid fatique with heavy packs.
The return crawls made for sore knees so we were slower and had more breaks. At the end as we saw sunlight it was as I feel when I come to the car from a long backpack---sort of an elation and let down at the same time.
We had the post trip brew and sat around in our chairs until the wind rose and I turned in early.
The next day we ridge walked a little, found one little cave I squeezed into amid a snake who found a crack to hide in and through a pack rat's nest. Small dry formations.
Next we went to a gypsum tube cave at the edge of a lava flow. No formations but neat and unusual solutioning, the tube looking like a small subway. We had some scary chimneying in here, I finally gave up right before the last drop. The cave went on farther but according to our guide was uninteresting so the group came back.
We split up finally here, my passenger riding back with someone else, I was on my way to do some sightseeing above ground.

Wow, I am tired but what an exceptional weekend. I keep wondering if it can get any better, and it does.
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wanderingsoul





Joined: 19 Jul 2004
Posts: 2285
Location: Gilbert AZ

PostPosted: 4/28/2009, 8:02 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Nice Letty, thanks for sharing your adventures and pics. You do some out of the way interesting stuff there.
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Wanderingsoul (Michelle)

Positive Thinking Is the Spark that Makes Dreams Happen~~~Unknown
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PageRob





Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 859
Location: Page, Az.

PostPosted: 4/28/2009, 9:51 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Very cool!
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RedRoxx44
Queen of the Walkabout




Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 1167

PostPosted: 8/3/2009, 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

I am sore. I am tired. I am bruised. I was bloody. But I was not broken; instead I felt so alive and so happy.
We made it into the cave I have wanted to be in so long. Long and repeated trips to the sump to see if the water is down. I got word while I was in Wyoming that it was finally passable. However, we found another obstacle just past the sump, after a wonderful room with about a 100 foot ceiling.
The next sump was clogged with silt and cobble. We dug for 6 hours the first day, hauling buckets that weighed between 30-40 lbs each. I got most of the bucket haul duty while Brian was scrunched over digging. Day 2 was 4 hours before we broke through, making a "worm hole" that was a little suspect. We had rock wall on one side and overhead but an unstable silt and cobble bank on the right that could collapse easily so as we squeezed through we had to be very careful to avoid being buried by the right bank. We carried digging equipment to the other side just in case we had to dig ourselves out. Scouting we discovered a high lead that would get us through with some climbing; I was relieved we had another escape route.

The endless magic begins. Huge rooms, pools, sculpted black rock floors, massive rimstone and flowstone formations, wild colors and patterns, intimate hallways, some crawlways, scrambling through some massive breakdown. I had three cameras, one failed with a lens problem, the other the batteries both ran down quickly ( I had charged them previously) and the Sony didn't let me down, but as the bulkiest camera it was the hardest to get out and use .
Brian was so patient as this was specifically set up so I could do my photo thing. We were eventually stopped by a small lake, we both were so tired and couldn't stomach stripping down and swimming in the cold cold water. So we made our way out, with the demanding scrambling, and climbing, and my dream is reality. Plans are a return in two weeks with another caver. And maybe I'll bring my wetsuit---- Wink
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Arizonaheat
Got Supes Juice?




Joined: 04 Jan 2003
Posts: 1741
Location: Mesa, AZ

PostPosted: 8/4/2009, 7:08 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Very Happy Multi Ok Yes Beam me up Beer
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kurthzone
Thread Killer




Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 1097
Location: Peoria, Arizona

PostPosted: 8/5/2009, 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Nice!
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desertgirl





Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 3350
Location: Chandler, AZ

PostPosted: 8/5/2009, 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Great pictures Letty! Agree
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Nighthiker





Joined: 05 Jan 2003
Posts: 1714

PostPosted: 8/5/2009, 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

More scenic then old missile silos
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RedRoxx44
Queen of the Walkabout




Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 1167

PostPosted: 8/31/2009, 6:27 pm    Post subject: Reply to topic Reply with quote

Everytime I go into this cave it is something different. Going farther and deeper into mother earth. Finally to the "end" a deep water sump that looks as if it will never go down, yet beyond the crack maybe there is a space----
We test for air and feel a little. So there is hope it goes on. We got past a huge breakdown pile this time, climbing high in the boulders, almost 70-80 feet up. The Big Room is just that, huge, with big beam flashlights and some high intensity headlamps couldn't see the end of the room. Ceiling height estimated at over 100 feet. Width---dunno maybe 75 feet. Length---who knows.
Mucho water this end of cave, and now from the "black" section to the "white" section with black pedestals. My pics this time have people in some of them. We took two other cavers with us and it made for a nice pace. People are good for scale. I got to test two cameras via my source and another caver, the Canon d10 and Panasonic Lumix Ts1. Both cameras are waterproof and shock proof. I didn't coddle them. The Canon seemed to have the better flash, while the Panasonic the wider angle and more ergonomic shape. Gotta remember to wipe off the lens tho-- Confused
Had the first fall while doing a sort of technical climb. Thank goodness I was being belayed, but it was a handline and I had just looped it thru the belt loops on my pants as we did not carry any vertical gear opting to climb the main two obstacles. It was absolutely terrifying when I lost my hold and swung out on a pendulum over the pit. Brian held me but I was totally freaked. I fortunately got to a ledge, then after composing myself traversed back to the climb. I was terribly frustrated and tired at this point and Brian, to my embarrassment, ended up giving me a hand up. It doesn't help that I'm afraid of heights, but in caving you're limited to how far your headlamp illuminates so that helps some.
Next time I'm bringing my vertical gear, then I am tackling that climb till I get it.
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