We met up with Swede, Nic, and Peter for a day of caving up in Monte Carlo Cave and Windless Cave to check out these two systems 60 miles west of Salt Lake City, Utah.

We show up in a Jeep and Peter is waiting for us where the pavement hits the dirt road so he will not have to take his car all the way up the 4x4 road. We find out that Nics car has been towed so they are at the pound getting the car out.  Peter, Laura, and I set out for the 4x4 dirt road to see how far we can get up the mountain without getting stuck.

 It has been raining for the past few days and the ground is pretty saturated which made the 4x4 road very muddy and difficult to drive. 

 Peter and I hike up to the Junction where the Windless cave road intersects with the main dirt road and waited for everyone else to show up. Peter ended up calling Swede to see where they were and we made the decision that just going to Windless cave would be best.

 Peter and I hiked up to Windless Cave which is a small entrance pit on a 45 degree southeast facing slope.  We rig to a tree and tie our main line to the line I rigged the tree with and backed it up around a boulder to give our anchor a good hold.

 The pit itself was around 120ft in total depth with 60ft of the pit a sleep slop, which appears to be a common theme with caves in Utah, lots of sloping raps.  Makes climbing up the rope a bit easier IMO.

 We all take turns bouncing the drop while I take some photos of the formations and nice flowstone on the walls.

 We all had a great day caving and after we got back to the car we went for olive garden to talk about upcoming trips including the Main Drain Project.  It was a cold and rainy day but we had a blast with our friends and cant wait to do it again!