ADAM HAYDOCK

 Ash Meadows is a unique and beautiful wildlife preserve that has been around for over one hundred years protecting native (endemic) species of life, some of which can only be found in this regional area.  The Wildlife refuge was established to protect the watershed that recharges out from a subterranean aquifer.  Early settlers have previously drained some of these natural springs that consequently, pushed a species of pupfish into extension.   

 Today, the water rights are regulated that allow for many species of pupfish and algae to survive in the preserve and other locations around Death Valley National Park. The pupfish are quite the interesting species, as they are able to survive in water salinity levels that would otherwise kill other fish and can withstand water temps of around 116 degree.   

We went to visit some of the springs in the area as this is where the water recharged out of the ground from the Aquifer and the connection between Devil's Hole and the Aquifer.  

 We went to visit Crystal Spring which looked the deepest and the most interesting with the clear blue water and a good sized boil re surging from the ground but it did not look dive worthy as there appeared to be a bit of a sand boil and the impact that a dive could have on the pupfish is not worth the effort.

 We went to visit Tubbs Spring, which looked a bit like a static pond of water, and a local spring near the area which appeared to have small sand boils.  From what I understand, there are many springs in the area and the water from the aquifer appears to be pushing through this region creating these springs but I wonder if there are dry dormant springs or other systems in the surrounding mountains.

Cascade Falls Cave is a horizontal cave in the Dixie National forest, Utah.  The cave is around 2000ft in length and is comprised of mainly walking passage. The cave does not appear to be limestone in nature but does sit on a contact layer that has signs of scalloping due to swift water movement.

Cascade Cave, Utah

Access to this cave is straightforward as there is a walking trail that leads to a balcony to view the entrance of the cave.

When we were there the cave entrance did not have a waterfall and we only encountered pools of water in the cave.  Usually there is a flowing stream of water coming out of the entrance, hence the name.

We got into the cave and noticed a gauge meter where the water appears to be flowing from which is quite high in comparison to where we were standing.  It would have swept us out of the cave if the water was raging. 

The cave reminded us of a Midwest canyon like cave that was devoid of formations.  It does have walking passage and meandering passage that appeared to keep going.

The air quality changed a bit where we were in there so we did not go to the back of the cave but we stopped around half way in and started to head out.   The cave is known to have high levels of C02 due to the decaying matter from Navajo Lake, above the cave.  There are sinkholes that drain water from Navajo lake, into Cascade Falls Cave and when we went up to the lake itself, there was a large portion of the lake that was bone dry.

Cascade Cave, Utah

We do NOT recommend entering this cave unless you are a experienced caver and have the proper training and equipment to enter caves.

This cave can and will flash flood so if you are in this cave when it flood, you can find yourself in big trouble. Furthermore, there are high C02 readings in this cave and that can cause injury or death if you are not prepared for the high levels of C02.   If you are interested in caving, please reach out to your local caving organization so they can prepare you for caving activities.

Polygamy's cave appears to be one of the more popular cave's in Tony Grove with its foot traffic and groups of people we found not only congregating at the entrance, but inside the cave at a distance past the light zone at a point where we would think people would have enough sense to wear helmets. 

Unfortunately, we saw a lot of people in the cave passing through and sitting around without helmets and without the right equipment.  .

This made us worry a bit about the future and if something were to happen, would they impose regulations or sanctions on future visitors because of an accident(s), that might otherwise be easy to avoid by taking proper precautions. Lets all do our part to ensure we protect ourselves by not only being safe, but ensure that we preserve the caves for future generations to appreciate and enjoy.

I entered the cave and went down its slopping passage and under some restrictions which took us into a dome room. We spotted a section where we would work our way down a small hole to the first drop, a 50 footer with a couple bolt stations to choose from.

Continuing past this section the cave keep going for a bit and restricts to a point where there is a 175 footer called first wife pit. Continuing down that drop there are another drop called the second wife pit which will take you down to the bottom of the cave at a depth of around 400ft.

There is another pit if you keep going past the first wife pit, which is cleverly called the third wife pit.  This drop is around 120ft into a terminal room.  

 I found this cave to be interesting because of the red sandstone layers, combined with some quartzite, and dolomitic limestone that colored some of the rooms with a mosaic array of design.

quickly running out of time from the dive in ricks spring, so we headed back out and made it back to the car before nightfall. There are some other interesting caves in the area so we are looking forward to checking those out in the near future!

 Moab reminds us of the Wisconsin Dells of the west with all of the tourists, piles of cars jamming themselves into the entrances of the national parks, as well as the tourist t-shirt shops and nic nac stores on the main strip on 191. In Arches national park, there are some great canyons which are straightforward and can be accessed all year. 

The first Drop in Not-Tierdrop canyon

 Not-tier drop canyon is located in the park ave section of Arches National Park and is a pretty quick set of three canyons that can be done all in a day or broken up for return trips. Laura and I dropped through Tier-drop canyon before and now we wanted to check out Not Tier-drop canyon as this place is a beautiful red slab sandstone monoliths with some really nice wavy swirly wind carved designs inscribed into the rock itself. 

The first Drop in Not-Tierdrop canyon

 We were just looking for a nice relaxing day in the hot sun and we had this place all to ourselves which made this place, even better. Even though there are tons of people on the main roads. 

 The canyon has three drops with the first drop requiring a 200ft rope and IMO, 200ft of pull cord. I rigged a fiddlestick to make the pull a bit easier since the anchor is DCR and up on a ledge higher than the saddle pour-off. 

 Once at the bottom the canyon opens up and you just follow the trail back to the parking lot which can take anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on how long you want to stick around and enjoy the redrock. 

After getting out of Moab, we headed down to southeast Utah for some solitude and to visit some ancient American history out in the desert. The Navajo and the Anasazi have thrived in this region for thousands of years until 800-1000 years ago, the Anasazi disappeared. 

There are some remote areas in south Utah where artifacts exist as well as some of the petroglyphs and pictographs which have not been seen by many people. 

Once we got on the dirt roads the people disappeared and we had the whole desert to ourselves which was a breath of fresh air and relaxing.  Its nice to know that there are places you can go where there is going to be nobody around within a 100 mile radius.

kiva settled into the rock.

The panels we went to see where on the sides of some of the dirt roads that we turned off on which were interesting to see and appear to tell a story of what might have happened here hundreds of years ago.  I can not be certain and my uneducated guess as to why these objects exist on the walls would be to show what has passed by here and what might be found in this area for resources that other Anasazi can take advantage of.  

We set up camp in a nice cove situated near some other panels and small kivas in the area.  We were the only ones in the area but unfortunately we were not able to see the asteroids flying through the air at night. 

kiva settled into the rock.

The following morning, we hiked up on top of the ridge to see if we could find any more artifacts but we were not fruitful in our trek in the desert. It will be nice to get back out there so see what more might be in the desert. 

Afterwards we headed back out and back to town and head out to the ceder mesa comb wash area to visit some other ruins before heading back.  

The sun was just breaking over the mountain ridge as we met up with Peter Hartley to visit a sacred place in one of the Alpine Karst region's in Idaho.  Night was still upon us as we made our way out to south Idaho but just as we got to the trail head, the Forrest around us started to warm up and the winds started to gather force as we pursued the cave. 

Idaho Alpine Caving

This particular place we went to visit has been, and continues to be, a double probation super top secret to the rest of the world due to the sensitive nature of the location and some of the beautiful formations that can be found at the bottom of the cold darkness this cave holds secret. 

Idaho Alpine Caving

This cave itself is indeed a very Alpine environment with many secrets that are still held with no human interaction and leads that we passed right by as we pushed deeper into the depths.   

We set out at around 8am so we could get a fast start and get up the mountain with some good time which worked out overall but was a bit of a bushwhack as only a couple trips of cavers have ever been in this system previously.

Idaho Alpine Caving

We eventually make it up to the top and the entrance of the cave which was a climb-down into a slot canyon like passage that led to a sequence of small shelved rebelay drops.  They were all 15ft or less.  

 This passage took us to a meat grinding slot canyon that tore at our cave suits and tested our resolve as the temperature dropped and the conditions became wet, the deeper we went into the cave. After about an hour of tight slot stemming, squeezing up climbs, and sketchy  down climbing, we got to a 15ft drop in water and the passages started to open up a bit more.

Idaho Alpine Caving

 We had to dance around the drop a little bit so we could avoid the 40 degree water but once we were at the bottom, we continued down a breakdown slope a couple hundred feet. 

Idaho Alpine Caving

 This slope brought us to a depth of around 500ft in the cave and around a half mile of total vertical extent. We got to a section where we had to negotiate around some boulders and a pit that dropped around 20-25ft into the water below us. Eventually we made it back down to the ground level which is where we started to have some headlight issues and cold condition issues.

Idaho Alpine Caving

There were some crawls in water in the previous passage that dipped us a bit into the cold so we stopped at the 600ft level and started to head back out.  The rooms started to open up a bit and there were helectite gardens on the walls where the passage continued.  There were also some formations and breakdown rooms that would have been encountered as well as a sump that needs to be looked at more in detail.

We started to head out of the cave and continued to take a few photos as well as fight off the cold a bit as we kept warm and kept moving out.  some of these passages we quite annoying as It felt like we were walking through the mouth of a shark that just ate a pufferfish. 

Idaho Alpine Caving

 The passages grabbed at our gear and I even successfully was awarded with a tear in my cave suit while heading out of the cave. not cool!! Eventually we made it out and got down the mountain in good time to make it back home at a decent hour. 

Idaho Alpine Caving

 It is amazing that we had to head out so early and we got back pretty late but a cutting edge cave like this ( no pun intended) was able to be viewed and photographed and back home at a decent hour.

I hiked up almost two and a half miles of mountainous limestone terrain to an elevation of around 8 to 9,000ft. to seek out the photogenic Heaven's Gate Cave in Utah. I morning was clear with a thin scent of pine in the air and blue skies across the ridge.  It was quite the hike to get to the this 170ft. hole in the ground, especially after negotiating some steep scree slopes and valleys without losing too much elevation.

The hike itself was more than a couple miles but after descending to the slabby limestone basin at  9,000ft of elevation, the gaping hole in the ground started to appear.  The walk itself was through some beautiful alpine flower patches and dry dusty pine trees with sap dripping from a few and others standing proud as they show a weathered personality from all of the hot summers and snow piling winters this region endeavors.

This cave reminded me of Conley hole except for the snowcone at the bottom and the 34 degree temps inside the cave. I should have brought some dye and would have turned this snow cone into the largest slurpie on the planet.  I rigged to the near-by tree and attached our bags together so we could have some rope padding from the edge while this semi static rope dangled into the darkness. 

The pit itself looked a bit intimidating from the top as you stare into the pit and admire the echo that reverbed for a noticeable amount of time in the gapping blackness, but once on rope, the ambient light shines in and the free drop is only about 40ft down to a ledgy section than a quick 10-15 ft drop to the snow cone and it goes down to the bottom.

This is just one massive hole in the ground with some ice formations at the bottom and a couple pits behind me that continued down to terminal ends.  There is not much more to it but for what it is worth, this pit is a nice one for bouncing.

I snapped a few photos and headed back out of the cave so we could make our journey down the scree slope to White Pine Lake and back to the Tony Grove parking lot in time to get back home and get ready for the week.

This is one of the few caves that I want to come back to and take a couple more photos of in some different perspectives and locations at the bottom.