ADAM HAYDOCK

Towering over the horizon west of Las Vegas is a beautiful Limestone and sandstone range called the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation area.

There is some world class climbing, hiking and Canyoneering within and just outside of the Red Rock area.

Within the the towering walls that rival Zion, canyoneers have found a bunch of fantastic routes that have some interesting variation and beauty within the canyons themselves. 

Mud Spring Canyon, Nevada

Two friends came for a convention and we went for Giordano's Pizza on the strip.

 We were talking about what they could do in their free time and Justin had some experience canyoneering but his brother, Asher, was keen on going canyoneering and was excited to hear about the routes.

We decided to venture to the more straightforward canyon on the west range called Mud Spring Canyon.  This canyon is rated at a 3BIII for the potholes of static water.

I got some gear setup for them and they rented a car because we needed a shuttle to complete the full route.  We had to set their car at the Late night parking spot since their car was not to dirt road friendly.

It was quite hot out but we worked our way down and made it to the head of the canyon.  We practiced a few techniques and worked our way through the gear.  Asher is familiar with vertical caving so we were all equipped to work through the canyon safely and efficiently.

The canyon itself had some nice sand stone layers at the top and a section where we had three raps that took us down to another small gorge.

The canyon reminded me a bit of Spry Canyon in Zion but a bit smaller. The size did not matter so much as it was still a nice canyon and a great route for beginner canyoneers with more experienced people to assist.  We worked down 4-5 drops and came to a confluence and figured that we were done with the canyon.  we put our gear away and kept hiking down.

To our surprise, we were not done and found that there was a bottom section to the canyon with some high walls and interesting drops.

We by-passed a couple of the drops but once we got to the slab rock, we rapped down to the final sequence and we made it to the bottom.

we had a couple 30-40 footers and a 50 footer for the final drop. 

After that we headed out of the canyon and onto the desert.

The canyon was complete but we still had to hike back to the late night parking spot which was 2-3 more miles crossing over a bounder field, arroyos, and a desert in search of a trail that could take us to the car.

After about 8 hrs from the drop point we made it back to the car. We also passed a rattlesnake along the way too.

We started to unpack and rest as Justin realized that he left his keys in my car at the top. We were able to find a father and son in a jeep that took us up to the top.

Mud Spring canyon is a nice canyon if you got two cars and at least a half day to spend. I recommend it and I feel that it is worth doing again.

I am glad Justin and Asher were able to experience this together and Asher got to experience canyoneering.

The vast and beautiful Mojave desert is one of the best examples of desert terrain with the attention to detail regarding the geologic make up above and below ground. One of these examples is the presence of lava beds might that have erupted over 100,000 years ago.

This lava bed is in-between Kelso and Baker where lava broke through the ground and spead across the desert plain.

These lava beds have formed small lava tubes in the field and one of the tubes is a popular attraction for people that want to endure the drive to the lava bed flats.

A graded dirt road will take you to a parking spot where you can follow a jeep road to the entrance of the lava tube.  The tube itself has some skylight holes which made for some interesting ambient light coming though into the fragment.

There is a ladder that will help people into the lava tube. I recommend bringing in a light so you can get under the "low" passage which might be 4ft to the ceiling.  The cavern opens up into walking passage for around 200ft until it ends.   It is a nice place to visit and I recommend it if you are in the area.

 The Nevada desert has many secrets including secrets with historic significance.

 Caves were used as storage facilities for miners and their equipment was kept and at times, left in the caves to never be returned to.

 Dynamite cave is a small cave located in a remote mountain range within the state of Nevada.

 The cave itself might be 100ft in total length but was a historic place where artifacts where kept including sweating dynamite.

 The dynamite was over 100 years old and it was "sweating" meaning that nitroglycerin was coming out of the shell of the dynamite stick.

 This can be potentially dangerous as the smallest spark or even a impact of  the dynamite could trigger an explosion.

 There was no dynamite or any other artifact inside the cave when we arrived which was unfortunate but its good that the explosives where taken out before someone got hurt touching them.

Timing the weather right in a potentially hostile environment can be almost like threading a needle but with a bit of luck and the right equipment, a trip like this was able to come together. 

Morman Mountain cave is a hidden gem within the Morman Mountain Range of Nevada.

A lot of the caves in the desert southwest have become victims of the mining industry and other problems related to harvesting minerals and artifacts from the caves.

This particular cave has a few filters that include the general secrecy of the cave itself, the remote and difficult to access environment it resides in, and the difficult access tot he region.

There is a lot that has to go into a trip like this and the Southern Nevada Grotto was able to formulate and organize a trip to the cave to finally have it mapped and photographed. 

The cave apparently has been visited only five times in the past and maybe a few more before it was originally discovered.

The cave is not that big in size but the back room has some nice formations and impressive features. throughout the cave.

It is walking passage towards the back and very decorated room has a resemblance of some of the other caves in the range but this cave might be the biggest one in the region. That being said its not all that extensive.

Survey was the top priority with this trip so two survey teams were established to complete the survey.  Laura and Barbara did a fantastic job with completing the survey.

Disto x instruments and a plan was created of the cave for documenting the cave itself and in comparison to other caves in the region.

Once we exuded a lot of effort to get tot he cave, we started survey operations and photography as we all went through the cave.

The colors inside of the cave did not appear to pop the way that I wanted them to but that might have been some other factors associated with that.

We took a few hours to fully document this cave and once it was all complete we left and headed back out.

We had some more time to do some ridge walking so we headed back out and one team went left and another went right.

The left side team went around the butte and checked some leads that were in the drainage to the west with no resulting caves.

The right team went around the ridge and peaked over the ridge which looked more like rolling hills than anything else and no sign of cave bearing escarpments, cliffs, or other features.

That being said there could be caves out there! We just did not go out there to check them.

I made it over tot he next butte and I was able to find another cave.

it was located inside a large shelter. the cave had small formations inside, it trended up and it was a bunch of crawling but it kept going.

There was another entrance just to the north of this entrance in another shelter that had flowstone and green mossy seepage coming out the entrance. 

I claimed this cave as "Little Mormon Mountain cave" as it was somewhat near Mormon mountain cave but was on the butte to the east of MMC.

These caves are continuing to be protected so vandals and other ideas will not enter these rare caves and potentially destroy them.

If you are interested in learning more about this cave, caves, in Nevada, or caving in general please reach out to your local grotto.

We looked at a bunch of ridges in the area and turned out nothing.  There was a section that turned into crumbly granite from limestone that also threw us off a bunch so we headed into another canyon and a cave became visible from the parking spot.   Our hopes were high as the caves looked like it would go from the spotting scope so we hiked up to the entrance of the cave.  The cave itself had a nice entrance but ended 36ft. from the entrance. This cave was more of a cave shelter which had some very small popcorn and rat scat towards the back. Regardless, it was exciting to hike up there and it was an interesting find. The entrance looking out of the cave had a beautiful view.  We continued to hike in the region without any other luck so we headed out of the basin and down to our next destination.

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 headed back from a ridge walk in the White pine range and headed down past Lund and back onto another basin which had numerous springs seeping and surging out of the ground. One spring in particular is called Hot Creek Hot spring and was our next stop.

We camped near the head of the spring which was a bit hard to see at night and was also a bit difficult to identify through all of the dead grass.  When morning broke I found that we were on the other side of the spring and the but there were plenty of access points.

I got into the 85 degree water and realized that this must be another connection to the massive aquifer under Nevada that connects to the Devils Hole system.   The spring was rather large for Nevada standards and the depth was around 20ft. I swam down and I could see a crack in between limestone bedding that had breakdown towards the back and tumbling sand from the water pressure.

I was able to work my way about 10 ft into this crack until I could see more breakdown and a spot that would require either digging or removing some rocks to get deeper into the fissure.  I think that I am going to find more breakdown the further I get but as far as Nevada goes, I believe this is one of the better leads to look into a bit more.  I do not think it will be feasible to get deeper into the passage.

It was a beautiful day to visit this spring and I am glad we had the chance to check this place out.  Afterwards we headed into the remote basins to check out Uhalde Pit.