ADAM HAYDOCK

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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GMZ CAVE, UTAH

October 04, 2015

GMZ cave, Utah

After Thunder Shower cave we set out to find GMZ cave which is just a 200ft pit with no going passage. After a while, we found the entrance which is a nice sink and indeed goes down around 200ft.

I prepared the anchor and noticed the highline rope had a core shot in it so I ended up having to cut the rope and now had right around 200ft. and a 180 or at least I thought I had that until I got on rope.

GMZ cave, Utah

I padded the heck out of the first drop and I want to get a bolt placed at the top for a standing re-belay to avoid some of the rock edges and avoid the rocks in general. They were solid but appear that they could start falling if enough changes about them.

GMZ cave, Utah

We were at around the same elevation and the flowers were blooming like they were back in the Unitas which was beautiful to see on top of the rugged alpine karst at 8200ft.

GMZ cave, Utah

I am not sure what GMZ stands for (Gangsta My Zipline, the Great Morman Zumba, or Go Macho Zoolander ) but once I got on rope and got over the ledges, the first drop was around 100ft to a sloping snowcone that poured over to the remaining portion of the pit which was at least another 100ft down.

I wanted to make sure that I got to the ledge and had a position to look over to see if the rope was touching the ground and photo the cave, and to my curiosity, the knot at the end of the rope was swinging around like whiskey dick and not laying down on the bottom snow cone like end of a good should be doing.

GMZ cave, Utah

I elected to not go down there and see how much more I had to go but rather got to the side clipped into the rope and found a awkward ledge to photo the first section of the cave.

GMZ cave, Utah

I was a bit disappointed by that but it there is always next time and I would not mind coming back to this one. The last sequence of the pitch looked like it opened up a bit at the bottom and reminded me a bit of a tag pit like pretty well without the formations. Once we were done with that, we de rigged and came back up. A thunderstorm was rolling in so we got down back to the car. This is one I would come back to not only because we didn't make it to the bottom but because it is a 200ft drop with a decent size room at the bottom and good practice.

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FISH MOUTH CAVE RUINS, UTAH

October 04, 2015

the entrance of Fish Mouth Cave Ruins, Utah

After fueling up a bit in blanding, we headed out to the Comb Ridge area and headed out down the dirt road to Fish Mouth Cave Ruins. There are a number of ruins in this area where the Anasazi appeared to have a network of housing structures built for protection, ceremonies, and a desert life style that included a nice river to gather water from.

I got to the trail head and the massive gaping alcove cavern was apparent and obvious to anyone looking in that direction from the road. The Anasazi must have had parties or some kind of special gathering here because this cavern could fit a small community in its shadows.

Fingerprints in Fish Mouth Cave Ruins, Utah

I hiked up and along the way, we passed by multiple ruin locations with some interesting structure, kilns, and broken pottery that was scattered around the entrance of the alcove. After being ambushed by a massive amount of gnats while going through a small swampy area, we got the slab rock on the reef of comb wash and the temps must have skyrocketed to over 100 degrees.

at the entrance of Fish Mouth Cave Ruins, Utah

The cave had a magnifying factor it as it appeared to stay the same size as we got closer which told me we had more uphill scrambling to do in order to get to the entrance of the cave. A liter of water later, we made it to the entrance and I was impressed with the sheer size of this room and the auditorium like presence this massive sand cave had.

Fish Mouth Cave Ruins, Utah

I contemplated if this was a wind cave and wind might have had a factor creating this but we could see seepage lines in the strata and break down piles which tells me that this cave has been falling in on itself as the seepage separates the strata consequently dropping layers of stand stone to the bottom which has created this massive room we found air conditioning in.

Adam Haydock in Fish Mouth Cave Ruins, Utah

There were artifacts in the cave from fingerprint markings to, small corn cobs that were randomly scattered around. There were also mud balls with hand marks and some signs of old grass that might have been used as foundation for kivas back when this palace of a cave was thriving with Anasazi.

Fishmouth cave ruins, utah

I can imagine the type of people that might have stayed in this area since it had natural air conditioning, protection and lots of space to move around in. The Anasazi parties in here must have been outstanding, everyone in the whole valley could see them rocking and rolling in this cave.

Fish Mouth Cave Ruins, Utah

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DUCK CREEK "MAMMOTH" LAVA TUBE CAVE, UTAH, UTAH

October 04, 2015

The Dixie National Forest has some interesting high elevation features that come with this region in Utah. You will first notice the mountainous plateau’s where pastel colors of red and white mix in to create a palate of cream and pink color to the sand stone where the pines grow in abundance. At times, you can reach an altitude of over 10,000ft. on your way through the Dixie.