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On Thursday February
23rd Tony W. and Mike W. met with Rich S. to start the annual "Cave Trolls"
caving trip to the Guadalupe Mountains in New Mexico. The three started off by driving
to Southern CA, where they would meet their friend Allen. The group were all going
to drive east to New Mexico in Allen's 28 foot motor home, but first they had to
pick up another friend, John W., on the way. They were on their way by 3:00pm and
continued to drive straight through.... to Sonora, Texas... where they would visit
the Caverns of Sonora before going back to New Mexico. After a long drive they arrived
at Sonora about 2:00pm Friday, Texas time (2 hrs ahead of our time) The group was
met by Bill Sawyer, the manager of the caverns and after some quick hellos they were
off to explore the cave. Rich and Tony had never been to the cavern before so the
other three of us were eager to see their reactions to this very beautifully decorated
cave system. For those of you who have never had the privilege of seeing this cave,
it has to be one of the most spectacular commercial caves in the U.S. that I have
ever seen. The first thousand feet are actually very sparcely decorated so a person
is not too impressed at first, but once the formations start to appear they become
ever more present and one has to really focus... to try and take it all in.
After a couple of hours
of "oohing" and "aahing", the tour was over and the group got
back into the motor home and headed back to Carlsbad, New Mexico where they would
stay with another caving friend of theirs at her beautiful home for the next seven
days. The drive to Carlsbad was uneventful and took about 4.5 hrs. After a quick
shopping trip the group arrived and unloaded all their gear and personal stuff. All
were in bed about 11:00pm
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Ooooh,...Wow ! ! ! !
Click here
for more pics from "Caverns of Sonora" |
Saturday morning the
group was up by about 7:00 am and after breakfast decided to head out to McKittrick
Hill to do some ridge walking and to scout some cave locations. All the caves were
gated, which was expected except for one small cave named Boyds Cave which was fairly
unimpressive for a New Mexico cave, but still we were underground! The day was finished
up with some picture taking and a good dinner.
Sunday morning the
group woke up to even better weather than they had the last couple of days which
had been sunny and about 64 deg. Today was sunny and 70. The group decided to take
a drive to Slaughter Canyon for a day of ridge walking and sight seeing. The day
finished up early in the afternoon around 3:00 pm, so the group decided to go back
to the house to get some rest for the next day..... because that is when the actual
caving was to begin.
Monday morning started
with the group going to the local Enterprise rental car lot to pick up their SUV
which of course, with any good trip, the car was not there. So after an hour of running
around from the car lot to the airport and back they finally had a temporary SUV
to get them to the cave location where they were to meet their trip leader, Phyllis.
After some slight violations of the New Mexico speed laws, Mike had the group to
the meeting spot only half an hour late. Today, the caves were the "Pinks"...
Pink Panther, Pink Dragon and PinkPallet. The hike to the caves is about two miles
of moderate terrain. Pink Panther is the only one with vertical, which is a short
40' drop. The most outstanding features of the cave are probably the short nosed
bear remains and the "speleogasm". The next cave was Pink Dragon which
is completely different than Panther, but still very beautiful. Pink Pallet is a
rather unimpressive cave. The group were back to the car by 4:00pm, where they left
Phyllis (who is 60 years young and still carries a full pack of food and water and
a rope walker system up and down to these caves a couple of times a month) to spend
the night on the ridge while they retreated back to the comforts of their host's
home back in Carlsbad. |
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Tuesday morning found
the group back on the ridge meeting Phyllis at her camp where she had spent the night
"In peace and quiet" as she put it. Today we would be going to Three Fingers
cave which was supposed to be a beautiful cave with a hike equal to the pinks. After
about a 40 minute hike to the cave in about 75 deg. morning weather the group was
at the entrance which is set into a 15 foot reef ledge just out of the bottom of
a large drainage. The cave starts out with about 15 feet of horizontal passage and
then goes to a 90' rappel. After getting off rope in the corner of a fairly large
chamber you can walk for awhile before starting to get into up climbs and down climbs.
The cave is a caver's cave for sure... and is very nicely decorated. We were actually
the first non restoration trip to the cave in years, so we felt privileged to be
able to spend all of our time exploring rather than cleaning.
We were back to the
car by about 5:00pm and decided to take Phyllis out to dinner in Carlsbad for a thank
you. Phyllis and John took her car while the others took the rental and headed for
town. On the way back the other four Mike, Rich, Tony and Allen could not help themselves
as the drove by a rather large cave entrance on the way back to town. They conducted
a anti-lock brake test and backed up to go check out the hole, meanwhile Phyllis
and John were still ahead of them on their way to town. After not seeing the other
car for awhile Phyllis and John knew exactly where the others would be so they turned
around and sure enough there they were crawling around in the "Hippie Hole"
as we found out later from Phyllis it only went about 70' and is a common hang out
for the local teens and for rope practices. Oh well !!! You don't know, if you don't
check... So after a good dinner and goodbyes to Phyllis the group was back at Louise's
for the night.
Wednesday morning was
going to be Sentinel Cave. John decided he would sit this one out, so it was just
the four of us. It turned out to be another warm beautiful day, and another nice
hike out to the cave. All we knew about the cave was that it was big and had a couple
of supposedly tough lead climbs and 600' feet of vertical in it. Well to make a long
story short, most of it was true and it turned out to be our favorite cave. We ended
up with a nice hike back to the car in the dark. It was one of those weird caver
things, we all had helmets with lights, but not one of us used them.
Thursday morning we
all woke up to sore bodies and yet another beautiful day. We all were going today
and we all knew this was going to be the toughest day yet. Our first cave was "Lake
Cave", which is at the upper end of Slaughter Canyon... three miles up. The
hike took us two hours and we all had hopes that the hike was worth it. Luckily the
cave was great and lots of pictures were taken. We were out of the cave about 1:00pm
and started our hike down the mountain to Christmas Tree cave which turned out to
be a small, but pretty cave with some unique formations. By the time we exited the
group was all out of water and we decided to head for the car. It was a long day
and almost sad in a way, because today was our last day of wild caving. Almost the
end to a great week of caving and friendship, however.......... it wasn't over yet.
Friday morning we cleaned
up at Louise's house and loaded up the motor home and headed for Carlsbad Caverns....
after all what would a trip to the "Guads" be without going to the "Mother"
of them all..... "Carlsbad" The group split up, with John taking pictures....
Mike buying books and then taking the elevator down.... Rich doing the big room tour,
and Tony and Allen walking down the natural entrance. We all eventually met back
up at the lobby and said our silent goodbyes to a place we all loved, and will enjoy
coming back to. So off we headed for home once again, back to reality whether it
be good or bad. The group arrived at Allen's at 3:00 am Saturday morning and Rich,
Tony and Mike headed north and arrived back in our general area about 8:30am.
It was a great trip
with a good group of friends and great caving partners, I look forward to the next
one.
Mike |
