ADAM HAYDOCK

 About a half hour south of Las Vegas on a lonely highway with a few shiny and remote casinos, there are some mountains of limestone hills that have some interesting geology to them.. I have been wondering if these hills will be home to a few caves but I have not been able to locate anything as of now. There are a few mines in the area but, more importantly, the state line hills have 4 canyoneering routes that might appeal to a lot of canyoneers. This particular canyon was a rough road to the TH and only about an hour hike up to the top.

 Ladder of Doom canyon was not that appealing to me as the drops were a bit open but the limestone was interesting to see.  regardless, it only took 2 hours to get through the canyon and I was back at the car, driving off the alluvial fan.  There are three other canyons here and I am willing to make another stop here to check them out.

 Keyhole canyon is a excellent Sunday afternoon canyon for the winder due to the mild conditions and close proximity to the Las Vegas area.  The canyon itself is less than an hour from Las Vegas but make sure you have a high clearance car to get to the trail head.

 Once we got to the trail head, Laura and I hiked up a wash and followed a ridge around a couple of draws to the head of Keyhole canyon.  This canyon was surprisingly beautiful as each of the 4 drops had a polished pastel pink dry fall with some sculpting and small pockets of limestone embedded in between strata. The first drop was around 40ft in length and had a small seepage spring trickling down the drop.

 Once we got to the second canyon, looking down canyon we could see a pink hue with more of a fire dark orange glow near the top which was quite beautiful.  The canyon meandered through a narrow corridor with the remaining raps yet to be encountered.

 The second drop was around 50-55ft. but the anchor is a long chain which is not exactly to the safest way to rap down this drop.  There is some webbing backing up the chain but should be tightened a bit more to narrow down the dynamic forces if the chain were to break.

 So far the canyon was beautiful and the drops were straightforward and nice.  The third drop opened up into more of a gorge but had a fluted meandering canyon wall and was around 40ft in length.

 It was a bit cooler in the canyon than it was on the outside but the weather was still really nice for this winter day in the desert.  I was imagining just how cold and boring Chicago would be at this time and we are able to enjoy a sunny day with 55 degree temps in a nice canyon, awesome!!!

 We showed up at the last drop and it was indeed the best drop out of them all.  The flutted walls were really nice and almost Zion like in nature but the rock was a harder looking rock in nature. This drop was 100ft in length and had a good anchor setup.

 We could see the desert sun setting in the distance among the corridor and hear stone monkeys climbing trad and crack climbing on the walls in the foreground.

 Once we got to the bottom of the canyon and headed out we noticed a lot of petroglyphs on the walls which was surprisingly abundant and covered a lot of the larger rocks in the area. I have not done much research on this area so I do not know more about these artifacts but I can rate this canyon as a 3AI and one of the best choices for a cooler day in the Lake Mead/Las Vegas desert region.

Anyway, we went our separate ways as she had a day off on Monday so while she headed out to Joshua tree, I headed over the desert near Lake Mead to visit a straightforward canyon loop called Sheepbone-Quarry Canyon.

Sheepbone canyon had a series of climbs that were straightforward and fixed with ropes.  The ropes appeared to be in fair condition but will need to be replaced soon.  There is some webbing that had some abrasion and cuts that should be replaced in 2017.

The canyon climbs up around 600ft weaving through this, almost volcanic mineralized rock to a saddle where you soon descend down into Quarry Canyon

I started to descend down Quarry canyon you will encounter 7-8 raps, some of them are down climbable, but most you should rap from.  Isn't that why we are in this canyon anyway?

I give this canyon a 3AII for is dry straightforwardness and beginner friendly with leadership capability.

I think that there are some tour companies that take their customers to this canyon but I am not sure. I wouldn't blame them for the relative ease of access and technical challenge. You also get some views of Lake Mead which is nice.

This took around 3 hours for me to complete, car to car, and it is worth a visit if you are in the Lake Mead area.

Panamint Dunes is located within the north tip of the Panamint range in death valley.

The area is only 3000ft above sea level and has a 4 mile ( one way) gradual slope that takes you to the heart of these dunes.

The views are spectacular and huge.  You get a massive amount of landscape with just being on top of these dunes.

Camping appeared to at large so a tent was pitched right on top of one of the dunes for the night time stars and incredible serenity.

The sand blows up from the basin below and reaches the range where it is deposited. 

The sunset made for some of the most fantastic scenery out here on the dunes.

Nobody else was out here which was another huge plus to this visit.

I am looking forward to coming back out here many times for its remoteness and the scenery is some of the best that I have seen for a desert landscape. 

If you are into remote sand dunes with very little people, this is the place to go.

Lava dreams pit is a short volcanic pit that is located in a lava field in the state of Nevada. 

I must say that this pit, although classified as a lava tube cave, was a bit under whelming. 

If you are in the area and know where this pit is located, than visiting will only take an hour out of your time. 

After October Gypsum cave we headed over to Paiute Cave, which is actually a lava tube cave on the Arizona strip region of North Grand Canyon.  This cave was more of a pile of breakdown beyond a room inside a volcanic sink. The drive was a bit long but once we got to the entrance, we could drive right up to the cave itself.

The Paiute inhabited this region for thousands of years and are thought to have drawn these red and yellow pictographs inside the Lava Tube cave.  I can not remember the last time I saw colored pictographs anywhere in the southwest, especially rock art like this inside of a cave. The lava tube cave appeared to be a cold sink as the temperature dropped 15-20 degrees as we got into the cave. I have recently read a report that this cave might extend down another 300ft through the breakdown but there is nothing more to see, other than more breakdown rubble.  We also checked out another lead in the cliffs nearby but it turned out to be a small alcove with bedding remains for an old animal house.   I am curious to know if this cave actually ends in breakdown, or with a little extra push, will Paiute cave pop into a tube passage?

To learn more about safe caving activities, caving in Nevada, or to learn how you can get involved and visit caves like these, please reach out to your local caving grotto, The Southern Nevada Grotto.  If you have any questions or you need help with reaching out to the right caving organization, please reach out to me directly.

We had to miss the first day's activities to Murtuit and Crystal cave but we headed out early evening and followed a way point that I put into Google maps which would turn out to be a "make it up as you keep going" route once we were making our final approach. Back in the paved road and steadily on pedal for around 3 hours, we reached an unassuming road that took us around some houses in the  Colorado city darkness and eventually our tires left the pavement and started rolling over the very nice dirt road.  The upper and lower Parashant appear to have hundreds of miles of dirt roads winding through what the cowboys of the 1800's referred this place to as a flat and lonely plain.
  

 The roads were well taken care of for a dirt road with the exception of a few potholes and scars of 4x4 tires grinding into the mud. Eventually we found our turn which was another nice dirt road with signs and even reflector markers warning us of permanent residency if we veer off the road.

The terrain changed a bit from a flat surface to a bit more of a slopping terrain which is always multiplied a bit more at night.  After around 30 miles of this dirt road driving we come to a place were we were suppose to turn but I kept going and realized we missed our turn.  I turn around and came back to the junction, the road went from supper nice to a 2WD high clearance one lane track just wide enough for a car to go down. 

I was thinking to myself, ok here we go with the shady roads.  As the sage was catching under the carriage of the car it was burning like a incense cover-up for a clambake.  Thankfully, that did not cause any damage to the car.

We eventually came upon a barn and the GPS was telling me to go left and the road all but disappeared with the exception for a couple tire tracks in the dirt going in the direction we needed to go.  I continue to follow the GPS and we found a road that mirrored what we just came off of but that the GPS was giving another instruction, and that was to go right.  There was absolutely no road to the right other than a pair of tire tracks.  So here we are in the middle of the Parashant driving around in the dead of the cold night on suspected private property and the GPS is telling us to literally drive through the desert.

We follow the GOS into the blind with a sense of hope that we would come across some kind of road.  We eventually crossed a few gates, and fields of desert and came to the crossway to a dirt road.  A few more of these occurrences and we got to a "main" dirt road that took us directly to the campsite and the cave. ha!! we made it!

The following morning we headed to October Gypsum cave and along the way, we passed up a few places where we could find some broken arrowheads in the ground below.  We came upon a dry bed in a dry losing stream of breakdown to where the entrance of the cave was and headed into the breakdown pile after the Tom and Ron rigged the drop.

This was really interested and I can not remember the last time I saw layers of solid gypsum like this. The cave was relatively small in size but nevertheless quite interesting.

We continued down the crawl which ended in a dig that is probably plugged by the watershed that this cave took along with the mud that caked the walls.  The waterline is obvious as the ceiling and a part of the wall is white and the remainder is gray..  I wonder if this is due to glacial run off? A mummified rabbit was also spotted as well as a big tiger salamander.  Interesting cave and a great introduction to the Parashant.

To learn more about safe caving activities, caving in Nevada, or to learn how you can get involved and visit caves like these, please reach out to your local caving grotto, The Southern Nevada Grotto.  If you have any questions or you need help with reaching out to the right caving organization, please reach out to me directly.