OWL CAVE & HATARI CAVE, UTAH
October 04, 2015
Entrance to Blue Owl cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
We made it up to the Unita Mountains and headed over to Owl Pit cave which is a really interesting feature in this range.
Blue Owl cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
Blue owl Cave is one of the more interesting caves in the area which has a nice 30-40ft entrance drop where you pass in-between a natural arch to the bottom. You will want to stay on rope when you get to the bottom and continue to feed the rope through a hole in the ground that drops another 40 ft into a 30 x 30 ft room.
vertical entrance to Blue Owl cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
The room cave itself reminds me of the caves back in Indiana but with the glacial till piled up on the ground but what was even more interesting is that when you go into the side passage, you will find that the rock changes from a limestone to a metamorphic sandstone with marbled layers in between each other.
entrance to Blue Owl cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
This looks like it might be hydrothermal in nature and was possibly, at one time, a hot spring of some sort.
This side passage continues around a bend and goes up to a unknown location. Water appears to seep through so my guess is that it is going back to the surface.
rappelling into the bottom of Blue Owl cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
Next we headed over to Hatari Cave which is situated in a field and is quite the interesting cave since it was surrounded by flowers, and lots of them!!
Adam Haydock at the entrance of Hatari cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
The entrance drop is around 30ft and you can go either left or right. We first went right and found some down climbs that did not go anywhere so we continued on to the main passage.
flower field around Hatari cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
The passage itself is tight and restrictive so it was difficult to work around but we could see a drop and continued to work our way to the drop but decided not to descend due to time and other restrictions.
d I checked out the other direction which was indeed a pit that dropped around 40-50 ft. to a slope that went into a canyon room that ended
Hatari cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
This was pretty interesting but I soon got back on rope and started to ascend out of the cave. I found that the most interesting part about this one was the entrance drop and the field of flowers that the cave was surrounded by.
down at the bottom looking up in Hatari cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
These caves are very important geological features so lets all please keep them in pristine condition. please use minimal impact when visiting them and do not damage the cave. we want to keep these wonderful places in pristine condition for generations to enjoy.
Hatari cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
I am looking forward to going back to see what is at the bottom of the main drop and continue to photo the cave.
entrance rap into Hatari cave, Unita Mountains, Utah |
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