Trip Leader: Rob Cranney, Tamie Jensen (organizer)
On Trip: Rob Cranney, Tamie Jensen, Thorpe Cox, Ralph Powers, Dave Shurtz and family, Glenn Shurtz and family.
So nice, oh so nice to come home to a warm house and a warm bed and a long hot shower. Oh man was it cold the whole weekend. I'd have to be well motivated to want to do that again. Nights going down to 12-15 degrees and cold, windy, snowy days. Sheesh.
Still a great trip all around with good friends and great caves.
Tamie picked me up as usual at my place and we drove over to Rob's to await Thorpe who arrived shortly there-after. From there we would meet the Shurtz's at the Payson "Flying J" to fuel up and begin our trip. A quick stop in Delta to empty bladders and fill up tanks then continuing on.
Twice I had our little caravan make wrong turns before we relied strictly on the maps at hand and made it to the cave's parking area, but being on a slope it was ill suited to tent camping. I knew of a flatter-more level parking area about 1/4 mile away for us to set up camp and we went there.
Tents were set up and food was cooked and preparations for freezing our collective butts off were made.
Next morning camp was broken down and within minutes we were hiking up the hill to the gate. Rob and I had a little giggle at Tamie mistaking the obvious hole for the main cave itself and coming out wondering where was the gate? Right up here. Lots of first timers seem to go for the obvious, I know I did years ago on my first trip to the cave.
The gate was opened and my rope was rigged up for the drop. Tamie was the only one who wanted to use her vertical gear to make the entrance drop. Fine by us. You always do what is comfortable for you, not anyone else. I went and did a body wrap until my feet hit stone and then angel rappelled the rest of the way. Thorpe tried to body wrap and got tangled up but managed to straightened himself out quickly enough. He also angle-rappelled down.
Once at the bottom I saw a very obvious dig and quickly explored it. Wow, lot of work. Little did I know (until later) that it was the Shurtz's that had done it and buried it years ago. After the gate was placed they re-dug it open and I learned later that it was the main route to one half of the cave. When I crawled around in there I found an upclimb that went (from what I saw) nowhere.
Thorpe found a small hole to poke around in himself just below the upclimb to the main portion of the cave (see pic).
Borrowing a handline from Tamie we rigged a line for the upclimb to the main passage. From there it was a quick crawl to the "birth canal" and to that portion of the cave. I personally wanted to see if the register was still there and if it needed changing. It wasn't.
After a series of grunts and groans the rest made it up to the first room past the birth canal and exploration and tests of nerves was on. This portion of the cave like the rest requires much bridging and exposed climbing to negotiate your way to the back of that particular section. There are many things to see along the way, sadly many broken speleothems but several spots are undamaged and unpainted if you know where to look. Having done a SAR practice here years ago I managed to find them and even more surprising remember where they are.
My main goal was to get the group to the "spikes."
The Shurtz's were basically on their own and planned to enter/exit the cave after us. By the time we reached the back portion of this section and was climbing up to see the spikes they caught up with us.
More pictures and more stuff to see. Hey, where's Rob? Ah, back near the big-room past the birth-canal, seems he pulled a shoulder muscle enroute in and stayed behind to wait for us. Bummer.
"The Spikes" are awesome to see as always. When I climbed up in there Dave had his clan and Glen's in the room with him and giving them a speleo-lesson.
From there I found that both Tamie and Thorpe were already gone and headed out. I caught up with them in the "register room" talking to Glenn and getting some history of the cave. After some farewells we caught up with Rob and made our way back to the birth-canal.
Since we were pressed for time we needed to head on out and get moving towards Old Man's Cave which would be our next stop. At the entrance only Tamie had her ascending gear and made it out rather nicely. Rob with his pulled shoulder needed some assist via a foot loop tied in the main rope and Tamie's hand ascender attached just below the knot. Thorpe and I made it out on our own using the rope as a hand-line.
We left the gate unlocked for the Shurtz's to close up behind us and we hiked our way back down the hill in the beginnings of a snowstorm.
Arriving at the Border Inn, we topped off our gas tanks and made the attempt to find Old Man's.
No such luck, and in keeping with an unwanted tradition, during the search Rob's car broke a fuel line and had to be repaired by Thorpe on the spot thanks to some electrical tape provided by Tamie. SIGH!
We drove on out to where we would spend the next three days/ two nights ... Indian Burial Cave. See part 2.
| Photography | ||||
 This is NOT the cave! Ralph Powers |  THIS is the Cave Ralph Powers |  Thorpe coming up through the Birth Canal Ralph Powers | ||
 Some of the pretties in the cave Ralph Powers |  The Spikes Ralph Powers |  Another view of the spikes... straight up Ralph Powers | ||
 Thorpe checking out a small lead |  Tamie working her way up the slope to the entrance Ralph Powers |  Rob making his way out of the entrance climb. | ||