ADAM HAYDOCK

At 1.72 miles and with a depth of 1,227ft Main Drain cave is the 9th deepest caves in the United States and the 4th longest cave in Utah. For years now, surveyor's, geologists, and cavers, have been stopped by a terminal sump at the bottom of the cave which has had them questioning what is beyond the sump and where is the watercourse continuing down into.  Previously, divers have entered these waters, but this year, a expedition of cavers and cave divers will be making a push deeper into the depths of this terminal sump in Main Drain in hopes to uncover what is beyond this Antarctic like environment where this mystery has held her secrets.

Main Drain Cave sits at around 9000ft. in elevation and is at around 34 degrees F. With the unforgiving high humidity, blowing wind, and 34 degree F. water, this system is strictly meant for the well experienced and prepared.   This alpine cave is waiting for someone to make a mistake where Hypothermia will set in and take down even the heartiest of cavers. Training sessions, meetings, and select groups of cavers have been placed in phases to operate this expedition with peak performance and precision execution.

A series of trips have gone into Main Drain this year and will continue all the way up to the expedition, where ropes are being replaced, bolts are being checked, warming stations and heating camps are being considered and located strategically throughout the cave to keep everyone safe.

On this particular trip, our objective was to bring in dive tanks to the bottom of one of the drops as well as 60 lbs. of weight for the divers buoyancy.

I get to parking lot and Peter greets me with a stack of dive weights to pile in my bag and take up the mountain and down into a given stage drop in the cave. I additionally brought all of my camera gear so I could get some photos and plan on where I will be setting up future photo opportunities once the Expedition rolls out.

Tom, Amy, Bev, Peter, and Justin all set up the trail to the entrance of Main Drain and we made it up there in pretty good time.

Each of us gear up in PVC suits and layers of thermo protection to mitigate the cold and wet conditions that this cave will be providing us as we enter into the depths. I got a nice AV suit so lets see how this thing works out in the cave.

I get on rope with my bobbin and get to the first rebelay at around 15ft down. The next rebelay is at around 60ft down and had some adjusting and re-configuring to maneuver around in order to successfully pass the knot in the short loop and complete the rebelay. This drop takes you down to the first snow cone and you rap down to a large ledge which is connected with a traverse line that takes you to the last two rebelays, one being around 10ft to a small ledge and another the drops you down to the bottom of the sequence with a 100ft free hang in a raining waterfall.

I had to change over to a C rig on the bobbin since the ropes were 11mm and wet and I was not moving on my bobbin even with over 50lbs of gear strapped to my harness.

There was another objective to replace ropes in the frayed knot drop as well as drill some bolts in the attempt to make the lower sections of the cave a bit more user friendly.

I think it is important to ensure we have the best gear we can get our hands on and have the most efficient methods used in this cave since the conditions are quite critical and we will have a number of people travelling through the trade route drops.

Tom came down and had some challenges at the second rebelay with the knot in the loop so he turned around and successfully ascended back up the rope. Justin and Bev were already deep in the cave and Amy and Peter were waiting at the bottom.  We continued on and made it to Ryan's climb where we had to pass a knot on ascent to the 30ft top of the pitch and at the beginning of the Leaky faucet drop sequence. Amy was getting cold and wanted to exit the cave so I elected to leave with her and get some photos of the bottom of the drop as well as the entrance of the cave.

The climb out went without any incidence which is good but this cave is quite interesting as it is a massive system 9000ft up, 34 degree water and blowing air with a similar temp. The objective for today was mostly successful but the push team was not able to re bolt any new sections use to a drill failure.

 High up in the mountains of south central Utah is yet another amazing place called Ceder Breaks. at over 10k feet high, it is one of the highest places in Utah and a nice place to catch some free air conditioning. Once section overlooks a beautiful vista but continuing south east, you will find a lava field with some interesting limestone features that appear to either sit over the lava or is a pocket of limestone where lava molded itself around.

 at around 8500ft. surrounded by birch and pine trees is this limestone pocket with a small cavern that holds ice year round which is called Duck Creek Ice cave.

 This is not much to this cavern other than it is cold all year round, but what I did find interesting are the colors of oxidizing elements or minerals seeping through the walls which might have been from the recent volcanic activity or some other anomaly.

 It is pretty touristy and well known as there is a obvious trail leading toward the cavern but it was worth a quick glance as we headed down to lake Powell.

 Stud Horse point it interesting sandstone vista overlooking the southwest tip of lake Powell and Wahweap in Arizona.

 There is a dirt road from the 89 that starts off as a broken up pavement road and turns into a 2 wheel drive dirt road. 

 This dirt road goes for about two miles and reaches a cattle guard crossing where the road continues to stay 2 wheel drive until you have to turn right and follow the ridge up hill a bit.

 2 Wheel Drive high clearance or all wheel drive might be able to make it but, we had a 4x4 so that worked out perfectly and got us to the vista point which is another 1.5 miles from the cattle guard where 2 wheel drive ends.

 There is a nice overlook that I recommend attending to when the sun is going down instead of going up for photography, but I think I was able to manage a few decent photos of this place as the sun was rising.

There are some hoodoos that have been left from the blowing winds which is interesting to see as we looked over the vista in the foreground.

 After breakfast we met up with the rest of the crew to head over to Lake Powell to rent jet skis and set out on the lake for the canyons and some very spectacular scenery while driving jet skis through canyons!

  Ceder Mesa is home to a very extensive network of ancient Indian artifacts and ruins through the canyons that network through the desert.  One of the of the most in-tact and photogenic ruins is the Anasazi Ruins of Fallen Roof.

 At around 6300ft. of elevation and a 2.3 mile hike round trip from the trailhead, the ruins are relatively easy to get to.  I rate this route as a non technical 2AI but does require a 3.5 mile high clearance drive down a dirt road to get to the trail head.

 Once you get to the ruins you can see the collapsed ceiling revealing a water varnished ceiling almost spray painted like with hand prints towards the back where a fires carbon blackened the ceiling and the Anasazi drew in their hands.

 The three structures looked pretty well in tact for being almost 700-800 years old and corn cob remains are still inside one of the structures.

 One of the structures looked like it was used as a kiln for pottery or a oven to cook as others showed signed of habitation.

 On one of the structures you can see the hand crafted work on the wall where the Anasazi placed brick to mortar on the walls to hold them together and set the material with their hands.  The wall still has signs of their finger prints and fingers working the wall into place.

We were able to get permission to visit Red Baron Cave on a short notice so I picked up the key and we headed over to the location where Red baron is located. We got a bit of a late start but we managed to beat the heat and traversed up the trail to the couloir where we had to scramble over boulders, scree slopes, and lofty broken up terrain for almost three hours and 2000 plus feet of elevation gain to the top of the cliff where Red Baron Cave is located. The best way to get up and down this traverse is to follow the couloir all the way up and head over to Red Baron.  I rigged to a tree and backed it up to the suggested dead tree that was split in half but still looked solid. 

The rope went over the cliff and about 15 feet down to a ledge with a karst window where the cave entrance is located. We rapped down and Joe opened the gated entrance to continue on into the cave. I went through first while utilizing a trolly line so we could drag gear through the small squeeze and it was a tight one!!

The passage goes straight and dips down a bit before sloping up on a 15 degree angle to a small room. We hauled gear back and forth to make it easier to get through.  Joe opted not to go through the passage since it was too tight and one person got a bit cold from the wind blowing through so I proceeded on into the cave to photo some of the rooms, the cave was only a few hundred feet in length so it was not long but there were some breakdown piles to squeeze around.

 There was another squeeze of 10ft and it opened up into a small but walking passage with calcified roots in the ceiling...that was pretty interesting. I noticed a side passage that I thought I will check out on the way out so I continued to travel down the passages passing up some interesting formations and finding some breakdown to climb through. 

That was also tight but once I got through, I made my way up into some interesting rooms with different colors of strata that was layered in the walls and some amazing yellow and green infused formations!  Last time I saw something like this was in Costa Rica.

This was rather interesting to see.  If I can guess, the green hints must be some kind of oxidizing element from copper that infused itself within the calcite and the yellow can possibly be a sulfur composite. The rooms were small but I spent some time photo documenting these formations and started to head on out.  

The cave was only 200-300ft. in length but I am not sure because there is no published map, or otherwise, available information to view let alone no real information on this cave which is crucial for any recreational caving trip, IMO. I headed back out after being in the cave less a hour.

When I came back out to the start of the main passage where the calcified roots were located I saw a side passage that started to slope down on an angle and had some interesting formations on the ceiling.  I continued to stoop walk down the passage and I could see that the slopes angle increased but the passage did not look too dangerous as I have done many down climbs on sketcher traverses in the past.  

 I started to down climb and a hand hold broke (which is a first) and I threw my pack to the side, turned on my back and increased friction as much as I could while using my feet to protect me for obstructions and my knees for shock absorbers but my speed increased until I got down to the bottom of the passage. My adrenaline was pumping good and I was hoping I did break anything at that point.

The "slide" was around 30ft on a 50 degree angle and decreased as I got near the bottom. I looked at my hands and I had a laceration to my hand which did not stop bleeding until I got stitches at the hospital 4 hours later, I sprung a leak in my leg which was a small laceration and another laceration on my knee. 

 I had to climb back out of this sliding passage and I knew that this would have been a challenge but I was here, down at the bottom so I took a few photos of the room and started negotiating my way back up the climb.   The climb itself was sketchy and at one point I was in a situation where I felt like I very well could have slipped back down so I grabbed onto some holds and crawled my way back up to the top.

with blood dripping from my hand and leg, I took some photos of the main room and headed out of the cave through the two small crawls trying to keep my hand high and yelling out that I need the first aid kit. When I made my way through the tight squeeze I cleaned my wound with water than alcohol and bandaged a quick clot which seemed to help quite a bit. Joe was very calm and accommodating to this situation. 

I climbed back out of the cave with some challenges and Laura was very calm and accommodating to providing care with dressing more wounds and checking bones and neurological which all appeared to be fine.

They de rigged and we packed up and headed down a couple thousand feet on a steep dry wash hoping we wouldn't run into any dry falls to rap. It took a bit longer to get down but eventually we got to the trail and got to the hospital with some cuts and lacs which ended up being 10 stitches when it was all done. 

I am writing this small party self rescue incident because I am passionate that this is very knowledgeable information for anyone going into Red Baron Cave and any and all recreational trips ( all caves trips).  Any cave trip you go on, you shall never skimp out on any gear...never de bug your bug out bag! I kept my first aid kit in the car and kept webbing for hand lines in the car...

 Always carry everything you are suppose to carry no matter what kind of cave it is. A lot of us do it, some will not admit to it but I should have made sure I had everything.  Next always rig a hand line on a down climb that looks half way sketchy. This is difficult to quantify because this will all be dependent on skill, the climb, and the situation, BUT who cares, rig it anyway!!! 

 I felt like I should be able to down climb this and a hold broke and I took a tumble.  I should have taken into consideration the tight entrance squeeze and the remoteness of where the cave was and the lofty rescue that would have happened if I broke something.  All things considered, I made the decision to down climb which was the wrong move, we are all responsible for our own safety.  Thankfully, my reflexes kicked in by releasing my bag, turning on my back feet out and knees bent. This could have been a serious issue and I am glad I did what I did.

I could see a trail where people have slid down this passage but I was not informed or saw any immediate placements for rope or webbing. So my concern is that someone else will slide down this passage and have different results.  I consider myself pretty lucky to walk away from this one, but a rescue would be quite intensive and involve risking a lot of peoples lives, (including my own, if a rescue is called here) to get someone through the squeeze, up the karst window and down the mountain. 

 BRING HANDLINES IN THE FORM OF ROPE! :) Use a 100ft rope to trolley gear back and forth in the squeeze and continue to use the rope on the first side passage going left.  Again we are all responsible for our own safety when we enter a cave, but this information was not available have a hand line and although it is not directly anyone's fault but mine to decide to climb down, suggestions and further information on the cave, including a map is good knowledge to have, especially for recreational trips.

 I consider myself a pretty good caver and not bad at climbing either to put it all modestly, but anything can happen to anyone, yet knowing what to prepare for on a recreational caving trip in a remote environment like this one is CRITICAL information. That being said, my training has always led me to a conscientious perspective of risk management, mitigation, and introspection when something goes wrong, I don't see or have heard that I am much of a "risk taker" but stuff like this can happen to anyone (always carry a handline and if it looks sketchy, rig it) If this was a survey or a exploration trip, I would have made sure I bolted or used naturals to rig hand lines, why don't I do that for all trips?  I should and will continue to have that mind set yet a lot of us might cut corners (lets be honest, seasoned cavers)........ don't do it.  I know what I did wrong but I also know back east or other caves we have mentions that there are sections on caves that require hand lines and sketchy traverses to be aware about, so now this information is known for future visitors of Red Baron Cave.

Never take essentials out of your pack, keep your essentials in there at all times for any cave, rig semi sketchy down climbs (especially if the cave is in a remote area and a rescue party will have a hard time reaching you) think about your self, your group, and others when making decisions.  The cave is worth visiting and although No cave is worth taking any kind of risk in, I found this cave to be uniquely interesting but not a destination cave. be careful out there.