DAD'S HOLE, NEVADA
November 28, 2016
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| Adam Haydock in Dad's Hole cave, Nevada |
Francesco Sauro reached out to me and we discussed that Daniela Barbieri and he would love to meet up with us in Las Vegas to
visit some caves and take a week long trip through Utah and Arizona to visit some sandstone features. Francesco is apart of La Venta, a highly prolific and professional cave exploration collective of scientists, technicians, and some of the best forward thinking speleologist's in the world www.laventa.it
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| Dad's Hole cave, Nevada |
Recently, Francesco received a prestigious award from Rolex for enterprise that focused on his expeditions in the central American Tepui massifs of Venezuela, Congratulations Francesco!
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| Francesco Sauro climbing out of Dad's Hole, Nevada |
Here is another article about the Rolex award with a great video on Francesco's expeditions.
http://www.rolexawards.com/profiles/young_laureates/sauro_francesco .
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| Adam Haydock in Dad's Hole cave, Nevada |
Francesco and Daniela flew from Italy to Los Angeles to receive the award and afterwards, they came out to Las vegas to stay with us to visit some caves and hot springs.
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| Francesco Sauro Ascending out of Dad's Hole, Nevada |
We all got up super early to head out to the caves as the day light around this time of the year is a bit thin ( between 7am and 4pm). Ron Davis met up with us and we quickly headed out to the range where we would find Dad's Hole and PJ's Pit.
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| Francesco Sauro and Daniela Barbieri in Dad's Hole cave, Nevada |
After meandering through some, " not to difficult dirt roads" we find ourselves on a straight line road heading right into the range where dad's is located. The road became increasingly more interesting with some deep sandy pitting in spots that my Subaru just barely cleared over. .
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| Ron Davis in Dad's Hole Cave, Nevada |
Eventually we came up to a boulder sticking out of the ground with other boulders blocking our way around this annoyance. I slowly got the Subaru over the rock but with the price of some small dings and dangs along the bottom of the car.
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| descending into Dad's Hole Cave, Nevada |
Thankfully, nothing was scratched or punctured...cant say that about the other car that cleared over the boulder though, but with a few more scratches going along the side of our cars from trees next to the road, we made it to the parking spot. There was a nice thin layer of dust that made our cars look like they have been keyed but that can be easily removed by a detail or two, I hope.
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| Daniela Barbieri in Dad's Hole, Nevada |
We set out for the entrance of Dad's hole and the hike was not too far until we came up on a nice hole in the ground with a slopping drop that continued down into the bottom of the cave.
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| Dad's Hole Cave, Nevada |
We rigged a 70ft rope from the top and brought another 250ft down to the cave and rigged towards the back to avoid some of the rocks that were ready to roll down.
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| Dad's Hole Cave, Nevada |
The cave was really dusty and had a lot of rat and bat crap everywhere, there was even a section where the crap would stick to the walls from a burro and create its own flowstone formation which was, well shitty.... and different.
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| Ron Ascending rope in dad's Hole in, Nevada |
The room to the right of the drop was a nice and old looking formation room with a wide passage and a drop continuing to the final portion of the cave.
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| Francesco Sauro descending into Dad's Hole, Nevada |
As we descended down, there were a lot of flowstone formations on the walls as we descended into the room at the bottom. This cave is pretty decorated
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| Francesco Sauro descending into Dad's Hole, Nevada |
At the bottom there is a steep slopping descent and a 15ft. drop that leaves you at the top of a rock mound in a room with a lot of formations and on the ceiling and on the floor towards the back of the cave.
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| going into Dad's Hole, Nevada |
It was a bit dusty and the rock itself had a bit more of a gray look to it but the formations were really nice and there was one section of the room that had some red and orange tint fused into the rock itself.
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| Francesco Sauro descending into Dad's Hole Cave |
We hung out in here for a bit and than started to head out of the cave so we could have enough time to visit PJ's pit before heading over to Ely for the night.
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| at the entrance of Dad's Hole, Nevada |
We all exited the cave without any incident and I stopped along the way taking more photos. I was surprised to find a lot of photo opportunities in this cave and there were even more photos that I did not end up taking which I will like to do next time we visit this cave.
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| Francesco Sauro, Daniela Barbieri, and Laura in Dad's Hole, Nevada |
The entrance views were beautiful once we got out of the cave and a lot of light actually works itself pretty far into the cave for a nice hue.
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| Dad's Hole, Nevada |
I continue to be surprised at how nice the caves in Nevada are and how interesting their hypogene properties are in relation to other caves in the region. There must be many more that are yet to be found.
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| Dad's Hole Cave, Nevada |
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