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Crystal
Tuolumne Cave
On Saturday June 3rd, Tony
Williams met me at my house around 9:30AM. The plan was to go to Crystal Tuolumne
Cave for the day. I had never been to this particular cave, it seems that in all
my years of caving there is always some other place to go, or some other cave to
explore.... so when Tony asked me if I would like to go see this cave, I quickly
accepted the offer. After arriving in the town of Tuolumne at a friend of Tony's,
we visited for a while, and then got our gear together... and finally headed to the
cave by 10:30AM, which is really late for us. The weather was great, and the hike
was easy and almost flat walking except for the last two hundred yards which were
rather steep.
Once
we got to the cave entrance, Tony rigged the first 50` with a rope and started down
into the cave with me following close behind. I was trying out a new digital camera
today, and could not seem to get the flash to operate... so several minutes were
spent trying to figure out how to make the darn thing to work, which I finally solved....
once this problem was taken care of, we continued into the cave taking pictures as
we climbed down. The cave had some of the weirdest calcite layering I have seen.
You could see multiple layering of calcite and mud stacked on top of each other within
just a few feet of layering. I also noticed that although the cave had obviously
been heavily vandalized in the past... there was still a great deal of small beautiful
things to see. Lots of little gypsum flowers and helectites, dog tooth spar and some
great box work.
I was surprised to see the
stream at the bottom, and was pleased to see a beautiful pool and flowstone in the
cave. I was also amazed to read how many non affiliated cave explorers make it to
the bottom to sign the register. Tony and I are both fairly good free climbers and
we had to really think about our moves climbing down after the first 50` feet where
we used the rope, and we free climbed the whole way back out without the use of rope...
for the average person going for a day trip to check out some cave they had heard
about... and not use any vertical gear is rather impressive and scary at the same
time. I am really surprised that there have not been more rescues in this cave. (There
was an old nylon rope rigged at the entrance that fell 15` short of the floor)
The cave was very sporting,
and very pretty in its own way. I am very happy I took the time to go see it, and
that Tony was nice enough to take me there.
Thanks Tony! ....... Mike
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