Nutty Putty and Silly Putty Caves

Saturday, December 3rd 2005 - Tamie Jensen

On Trip: Tamie Jensen, Ralph Powers I woke up early; far too early for caving. I was so excited to try my new descender. I read all the literature on it while I was waiting for the day to progress cause I couldn’t get back to sleep. I just wasted time until it was after nine. Then I jumped in the SUV and headed towards Provo to pick up Ralph. I called Robert Cranney to see if he was up and wanted to go. He must have been sleeping because I only got voice mail. Ralph called when I was getting on the freeway and I told him I would be at his house in under an hour. It started to lightly snow when I reached Provo. I backed into Ralph’s driveway and he packed his stuff in while I unloaded some of the trash accumulated in the passenger seat. He jumped in and off we went. The first thing was to get Rob up and convince him there was nothing better to with his time than go caving. After a couple of lame excuses I resorted to name-calling then gave up. Miles after Lehi, not far from mile marker 7, Ralph realized that he forgot the rope. So I called Rob again and this time resorted to begging. I didn’t want to drive all the way back to Provo when I had started my trip in West Valley. Rob had not changed his mind. I was depressed. Upper cave minus rope plus new descender equals Nutty Putty Cave plus my descender remained sadly unused plus Ralph gets flogged at the next SL Grotto meeting. Soon we were parked near Nutty Putty watching an SUV scrape off his exhaust thinking he could make it all the way to the cave. I walked up the hill leaving Ralph to enjoy nature. I got there at the end of a long line of people going into the cave. I was not surprised at any thing I saw. I commented to Ralph as he walked up in his gear that not one person had a helmet. Some didn’t even have flashlights while only a couple had headlamps. I gave them my 2 cents and advised that they stay together. I wanted to say more about their extreme level of unpreparedness. I hope that Ralph and I were setting a good example. Instead of waiting for an accident to happen, Ralph and I walked over to Silly Putty. We explored it as thoroughly as I dared. I thought it was very unstable so we didn’t stay long. Then we walked over to Rabbit Trap. The smell of the dead was over powering. It would be nice to find a way to keep the animals out. The Misadventure family was nowhere to be seen but three boys were coming out trying to push a box of beer out the entrance. The smell of beer was horrible. I asked them twice about the beer when they left if behind. They said it wasn’t theirs. I’m sure it was though. Ralph and I crawled in and headed for the maze. We got a few pictures. We even found a dismembered Barbie Doll-BONUS. I felt lost most of the time and was relying on Ralph to not get lost. I explored a few leads off the main route. There is certainly a lot of trash in there. There were arrows painted and scratched on the walls that seemed completely useless. It is obvious that the people that come there have no business going into any other cave lacking the respect the cave deserves. We exited the cave to a snow storm in the setting sun. It was an amazing view from the hill. We headed back to town and finally met up with Robert and went out for sushi. We talked about our fun and laughed like were the only ones in the restaurant. It was a fun day. Ralph: “What’s…..Up……Doooooooooooooc”