On Saturday September 17 th 2005, Rich
S., Tony W., Tom L., Mike W., Michael W. II, Courtney W. and their uncle Micah J.
all met at Mikes house at 8am to go on a caving trip to some caves up the Stanislaus
river. There are many caves that become more easily accessed when New Melones lake
rises close to its maximum levels. So knowing this the group had decided to take
advantage of this and borrowed Mike's dads boat and planned the trip. After fueling
up the boat and grabbing some last minute snacks the group was on the water by 9
am. The boat ride up river was nice and took about twenty minutes.
The first thing the group wanted to do was check on the status of a gated cave in
the area to see if the gate had been breached or the cave had been visited or vandalized.
After reaching the cave through a rather adventurous and sometimes rather painful
combination of climbing and crawling through wild grapes and berry vines, the group
reached the cave entrance. At first glance it appeared that the gate had not been
tampered with, but with closer inspection it was noticed by Rich that the gate had
indeed been breached by someone. So now we had to hope that is was done by over aggressive
cavers and not vandals. As it turned out the cave seemed to be fine with all damage
appearing to be from a long time ago. As a matter of fact there were actually broken
stals that have already regrown approx. a full inch of soda straw! So itís good to
see that mother nature is fixing the caves and itís good to see that the cave is
still alive. The cave itself is rather small and hard to find which will help in
itís preservation. It is a very pretty and well decorated cave with significant formations
and past geological activities. We will be making recommendations to secure the gate
better than itís current status.
So after a quick bite to eat and some water we headed back down to the boat and headed
up river some more. We stopped a few times to check out some other exposed holes
in the walls of the canyon to check for possible bat populations, but none were found
so we continued up river to Crystal Stanislaus cave. After reaching the base of the
cliff under C.S. which was approx. 80` above us (the lower entrance) Tom, Tony, Mike
and Micah decided to try and make the rather difficult free climb to the lower entrance.
Going up was not to difficult, but none of us were too excited about the first twenty
feet going back down. But we didn't have time to think about that we still had caving
to do first. All of us had been to the cave before, but we still wanted to get another
cave in for the day so we headed in. Tony went first followed by Mike and the others.
About fifty feet into the cave Mike noticed a Townsend long eared bat lying right
in the pathway, Asking Tony if he had seen it or not, Tony replied "NO"
so Mike picked it up gently and moved it to a safer location. The bat was alive,
but appeared to be little under the weather. Mike and the others continued on to
check out the rest of the cave which is a rather large cave for the mother lode area
and still has some nice formations and if one uses their imagination they can see
how much more beauty was there before the early prospectors harvested the guano and
formations from the cave for profit.
Once back to the lower entrance Mike stopped Tom to get a picture of him and his
NOT so typical cave equipment. (Sunglasses and his GPS unit!) "I might have
to switch my halogen bulb out for something not so bright" to help Tom out with
his sensitive eyes. So now we were all ready to try and make the down climb back
to the boat. Mike headed down first, he is still recovering from a broken collarbone
so I guess the theory was let the crippled guy fall first. As it turned out the group
all made it down without any problems and the last part of the climb was eliminated
because the group all decided to jump the last twenty feet into the lake.(And some
in the group needed the bath after a day of hiking and caving!) So the rest of the
day was spent exploring the lake in the boat. The group were all back at Mikeís by
5pm
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