Trip Leader: Rob Cranney, Tamie Jensen (organizer)
On Trip: Tamie Jensen, Thorpe Cox, Ralph Powers
Day four, last cave on the list to see. Snake Creek. I have only been here once before and that was to do a bat count with the Baldinos on non exististent bats. Still a pretty and fun cave.
Rob opted out on this trip for his own reasons. He would stay at camp and finish his book and basically relax before the long drive home.
With the rest of us in Tamie's Bravada we headed off. There was a road log to the cave but it started back in Baker. I made an attempt to find it via memory and using the road log.
Our first attempt was to take a very obvious right turn, but to me it didn't seem right because the hill/mountian side wasn't quite the way I remembered it.
We drove back to the main road and started over using strictly the road log and ended up where we were before, I encouraged Tamie to drive further on the road where there were no tracks. I wanted to get to the other side of the mountian that we were looking at. She did and there was a "faint" road leading off in the direction indicated by the road log. Within minutes we saw the cave entrance. (see pic).
We found a parking spot and then talked about what we wanted to do. Now Tamie wasn't feeling up to it. Well, at least we could hike to the entrance and get GPS coords couldnt' we? Alrighty then.
Thrope and I brought our helmets anyway just in case. Glad we did.
Once at the entrance we took pics and then opened the gate. Thorpe and I decided to just go in a little ways while Tamie waited outside for us. The sun was beginning to peek out behind storm clouds. It meant that she wouldn't have to be so cold waiting.
With dust masks on Thorpe and I climbed inside the gate and headed on in. The first 100 or so feet of cave is very dry and dusty, with eons of guano and rat droppings in the dust so masks are a must. After you get past that point then everything is breathable.
The crawl past the 12 foot deep gap is what makes the cave I think. Well over 1000 feet of ups downs, rights, lefts and formations along the way. It's slick in a lot of places and after a bit one can wonder what they're doing in there. This is no soft mud floor of Little Muddy, hard flowstone and cobble wait to eat tender (unpadded as in my case) knees and elbows.
But eventually we reached the back of the cave which had Thorpe's jaw dropping because of the sheer size of the room. Kinda cool because you're in a crawl for a long way then... BAM! Big room.
Moving through there we come to yet another large room and found the register. The paper inside was wet and soggy and basically falling apart. Still we managed to get our names in. I noted that members of the BRG had visited the cave not tooo long ago.
We continued on, mindful of our one hour time limit provided by Tamie, and found the last big room. There were a few side leads going off I remembered but those would have to wait as well.
Working our way back seemed to be harder than going in. Probably because we were going UP hill, I noted that the crawl tended to go down inside the mountian.
We got out in good time and thus met up with Tamie just as she was ready to hike back down to her Bravada.
From there we turned in the keys and gassed up at the Border Inn and were on our way after a quick stop in Delta for a light dinner.
Great caves, great trip, great friends.
Wish you were there.
| Photography | ||||
 Entrance to Snake Creek Cave |  Masks on and ready to go... the dog stays though Tamie Jensen |  Some of the pretties in the crawl way Ralph Powers | ||
 More pretties Ralph Powers |  Thorpe making his way through Ralph Powers |  Thorpe signing the register, notice the OLD register above him. Ralph Powers | ||
 Thorpe admires a pretty one. Ralph Powers |  On the way out, be sure to choose the right one. Ralph Powers |  Afterwards, another fine trip. Ralph Powers | ||