Oak City and Tabernacle Hill

Saturday, January 14th 2006 - Robert Cranney

Location: Oak City, Utah Trip Leader: Robert Cranney On Trip: Robert Cranney, Duane McCully, Holly McCully, Stephanie McCully, Tamie Jensen, Ralph Powers, Kyle Price, Thorpe Cox, Larry Spangler, Jason Baxter, Jonathon Baxter When I announced this trip at the Salt Lake Grotto meeting, I didn't think we'de have a good turn out. Was I wrong. Friday night before the trip I had counted up to 30 people that had told me they were thinking about going or for sure going. At the last minute 9 people didn't make it, cutting back the number somewhat. We all met at the park and ride in American Fork at 9:00 am. We waited for about 15 minutes for more people to show up and decided to hit the road with 11 people. A good number. We split the group into 4 high clearance vehicles. While we were driving to the cave, Duane kept giving me a hard time about being able to find it. It's been 10 years since I was last there, but I was confident I could find it. If I've been to the cave, I can get you there. If I haven't been to the cave, I'm almost sure I can get you there. Unless you are talking about Red Beard and Goshute Cave. They have eluded me. We parked the vehicles on the side of the mountain, donned our gear and headed up the mountain. While we were hiking up I showed the group the "Markers" that the townsfolk placed to walk you right to the cave. Within 10 minutes we were sitting at the entrance. Duane and Stephanie headed in to check for live animals. (Duane has a history). With the entrance cleared we all headed in. The cave is hot. Within 2 mintues I was cooking. Who was it that told the group the cave was cold? Oh year, it was me. Sorry. Once in, I just let everyone go explore and have fun. We pointed out the cave damamge to the new people in our group and tried to imagine what the cave looked like before the broken cave formations and spray paint. After an hour or so we decided to head out. Now we were off to Tabernacle Hill. With a short drive south we soon arrived at the lava field. As we approached the lava tube, we noticed a 4 runner sitting off to the side. Then we saw two guys off in the distance. Wait a minute, that guy looks just like Jon Jasper. But it can't be. What's he doing way out here? Once we parked, the two gentlemen (and I use the term loosely) started walking towards us. It was Jon Jasper and Jason Knight looking for that "Secret" lava tube. Running into Jon on caving trips has become a precedent now. But we still like you. Well, we all got out and put on our helmets. We decided to start at the East end of Tabernacle Hill Lava Tube and work our way west. The lava tube is really cool. Everyone in the group had a great time exploring and seeing a lava tube for the first time. Once we were out, Jon and Jason were gone so we decided to head west and see if we could locate a vertical lava tube that Duane and Ralph had been to on a Utah Cave Search and Rescue practice many years ago. With little confusion, we finally found the road that heads west. Within 200 feet I noticed a small hole to the right of the vehicle with green growth on the edge. So we stopped to check it out. Turns out we found the lava tube. It has an entrance drop of about 30 feet. We didn't bring our vertical gear, but now we know where it is for a later trip. And rumor has it there's more where that came from. We then decided to head over to Cairn Cave. It's named this because of the two big cairn stacks next to the entrance. As we were approaching the cave we nocited a person standing off to the right of the road. We decided to stop and make sure he was ok. When we pulled up to him, Duane realized that it was John Halleck. Turns out he was camping out in the area with his son. Duane had been on some cave rescue training with him back in the mid-nineties. And then we saw Jon Jaspers 4 runner again. Is he stalking us? He was checking out the cave with John's son. Most of the group got their helmets and went to see the cave. Once we were out we finally ran into Jon coming out of the other side of the system. One other thing we wanted to do on this trip was try and find the ice cave that is located on the north end. With a sad farewell to Jon and Jason, for they were heading to the hot springs, we decdided to try and find the ice cave. When we finally got to the area, the sun was almost gone. We had about 15 minutes to look. But with the sunlight going, and the hunger growing in our stomach, we decided to head home. On the way home we made the usuall stop at the Family Tree Resturant for good food and greats laughs.