Saddle Butte pictures

Just wanted to upload a few pictures that other cavers got from the trip.  Especially a couple that Brent took.  He does extremely well at cave photography!

Saddle Butte Day 3

My Sunday really began probably around 2 or 3 am.  I was awakened to the sound of yelling, and a bright orange blow.  I unzipped my tent and saw that Sam and Mike Loomis's tent was on fire.  Everyone was running around working to put it out.  I put on my shoes and went over, but by that time it was under control.  So I went back to bed.  The next morning I was again the first one up.  I cooked my breakfast, and then as everyone else woke up we saw the full extent of the tent damage.

This picture shows just one side.  But the story went like this.  Sam and Mike had a propane heater in their giant tent (first mistake).  They had left it running when they went to sleep.  During the night we had a more-than-usual-powerful gust of wind come through and it ruffled things around.  Including their tent.  And it blew a chair and coats over onto the heater, which caused the fire.  Both of the brothers were lucky that they were not harmed.

After breakfast was finished Scott helped me out with my vertical gear.  He let me borrow one of his chest harnesses which was better suited than what I was using.  Then he rigged the rope to descend into Fortymile Cave!  There would be two drops in this cave, both about 15-20 feet in height.  The second drop would have a nasty lip to negotiate.

Brent went down and began to rig the second drop.  Scott dropped down, and then told me to come on down.

Mike and Errin checked me at the top and made sure I was doing everything correctly.  I did have to undo a couple bars on my rack though.  I'm used to being able to use all my bars on the ropes I've dropped on, but this rope wasn't that case.  But I made the first drop without any incident.  I began walking down to the second drop and I heard a rattle.  Looking over behind a rock in the "twilight zone" I saw a small rattlesnake hiding.  That made rattle snake #2 for me on this trip.

Soon all of the group members that were going on this vertical cave trip joined us.  Matt and Kara were doing a survey project, before Matt went home.  So they didn't join us.  Brent soon had the second drop rigged and he and Scott, and a couple others descended, before Errin told me to go.  It went well, until I reached the lip.  At that point I couldn't keep my feet against any rock.  I couldn't just hang free because of the lip or I would flip over backwards.  But I was able to get onto my knees and lean back a bit further and slowly let the rope through my rack.  I ended up scraping the top of the rack on the rock a little bit, but I made it to the bottom pretty good.

From that point on, it was pure amazement.  Fortymile Cave was the most impressive cave of the entire trip. I even found a clump of pure gypsum growing.  Scott looked at it and said it is the highest quality gypsum you can find growing in a cave, just like he saw in Lechuguilla.

There were lots of little areas along the walls with tiny lava formations.  In some places there were some nice "lava soda straws"

I went off by myself and journey to the very back of the cave, signed the register, and then waited for everyone else to arrive.  Brent was the last one, and he took a pretty nice group photo.

After that, we made the trek out.  Jeffery was the first one out, followed by Scott and Mike.  I went up the first drop and got to the lip.  Then I ran into trouble, like I knew I would.  My croll ascenders would not let me get up the lip.  I had to use a webbing ladder that Brent rigged to help me out.  I definitely need to get a handheld ascender to make obstacles like that easier to negotiate.  But the important thing was, I got out.  The second ascent went much smoother.  There was nothing difficult about it.  Ned came up right behind me.

It took a while for Brent and Errin to come out of the cave.  They had stayed and worked on taking photographs.  Errin had found a mummified bobcat under a ledge.  Somebody from the BLM (Bureuo Land Management) put rocks around it to protect it.  But when they did emerge, Ned and Errin packed up their truck, and then helped load up my stuff and drove me back out to my car.

It was definitely a new experience caving in lava caves.  It can't compare to limestone.  The two are so vastly different.  But it was an excellent trip, and nice to make some new caver friends, and see what my caving future holds!

Saddle Butte Day 2

The wind blew all night, and the rain fell.  When I arose and cooked my breakfast I was greeted by a shower of ice pellets, and snow covered all the high peaks around us.  I also noticed that more people had joined us.  Ned and Errin Walker had came in, and they had also given Jeffery a ride.  We had quite a caving crew now.

Once everyone had eaten and was suited up to protect themselves from the cold (and possibility of more rain) Brent gave us a group talk and then we loaded into the vehicles and drove 1/2 mile.  From there it was on foot the rest of the day.  We just walked across the lava flow, following the collapsed tube.  Brent and Matt had GPS devices they used to lead us to the caves.

The first cave we came to was called Collapse Cave.  It is pretty small, on the edge of a collapsed sinkhole.  As we set our stuff down on the edge I proceeded to put my pack on a rock and sit down.  At about that time I saw a rattle sticking out from under the rock.  Jumping up I stepped back and looked under the rock.  There was the first rattle snake I had ever seen in person.  And he wasn't happy.  But, it wasn't exactly warm out so he was pretty sluggish.  I told Brent about my find and he got his camera he has mounted on a long pole, and spent the next few minutes trying to get some neat video shots.  I joined a couple guys and crawled into Collapse Cave.

At the bottom of the cave there was a small room.  It looked like it had been used as a bobcat den.  And then we saw a dead, baby bobcat lying on the floor.

I crawled back out and our group got together and continued on down the lava tube.  When we could, we would walk down in the collapsed portion to escape the worst of the nasty wind that continued to blow.  But at least the possibility of rain dwindled as each hour passed.  After a while of hiking we reached a series of arches.  They were pretty neat.

Our next two stops put us into two tiny caves.  One had one entrance, the second had two entrances so you could do a thru trip.  They were fairly short; but miserable to get into.  The entrances were clogged with tumble weeds.

We took our lunch break outside the entrance to Owyhee River Cave.  This would be our first "grand cave" of the day.

I was in awe at the size of Owyhee River Cave.  It's like a giant subway tunnel that just stretches into blackness.  And it doesn't end.  It makes your light feel so under powered too.  The black lava rock absorbs your light.  As we journeyed farther into the cave we came to a massive graveyard.  Up above there is a tiny "hidden" skylight entrance.  Lots of small animals fall through and die in the bottom of the cave.  There is a huge mound of skeletons and decomposing animals.

Our next stop was Burns Cave.  It took a while to get into this one as it was completely filled in with tumble weeds.  Jeffery, Matt, and Scott dug around for a while until finding a way in.

Burns Cave was just as impressive.  It was even neater though, to see that nobody had been inside the cave for years.  There were no human foot prints anywhere on the silt floor.  It was like we were walking into a giant time capsule.  It is hard to believe that molten rock used to flow through these giant tubes.  The back of Burns Cave ends very abruptly.  A giant, smooth plug just filled the back of the lava tube.  As Matt described it, imagine you are sucking through a straw and are slurping up the remaining liquid in the bottom.  The liquid comes in spurts, broken up by pockets of air.  That is what we were seeing with this plug.

The last cave for the day was Rattlesnake Cave #2.  This one was a thru trip.  In the big entrance, and out through an upward squeeze and popping out farther along the flow.

In this cave the magma had formed some pretty neat "blades" that ran down off the walls.  And like the previous two caves, it was very impressive.  After exiting we walked back to the rest of the group and when we were all together we began the long trek back to the trucks.  It was almost 3 miles.

When we finally reached camp it was a welcome relief to sit down and cook some dinner.  We were treated with a gorgeous sunset that night.

When everyone was done eating we all piled in to Mike and Sam's giant tent and Brent showed us his videos from the day.  And then we watched a presentation he had made with pictures and videos from previous trips.  It was pretty good.  When that was finished, everyone sauntered off to bed.  Tomorrow was vertical day!

Saddle Butte Day 1

Friday afternoon I drove out to an area in the Oregon desert called Saddle Butte.  It is a massive landmark that can be seen from 50 miles away or more.  The area is surrounded by an old volcanic system.  A giant lava tube flows through the region.  Most of it is collapsed, but there are portions that are intact and give cavers perfect opportunities to explore. :)

I made it to the spot I was parking my car at.  Matt Skeels was already there, and 10 minutes later Brent and Kara arrived to pick us up.  We got all our gear loaded up and Matt announced that he had brought a giant iron pry bar to use on a digging project.  So about halfway to camp Brent stopped and we got out.  Matt began digging out rocks.  We all sort of took turns until we had englarged the hole.  There was a strong breeze blowing through, but it was too tight and too many rock restrictions to get through.  After digging in two more spaces we called it quits for the day.  As Matt said, it was a BLFFG cave (Better Left For Future Generations).

We finished the drive back to camp, and saw that Mike and Sam Loomis were there and had their camp set up.  Let's just say now, that those two brothers brought a lot of laughter and interesting times to our caving group.  Our camp was set up between Fire-pit Cave and Fortymile Cave.

The rest of the evening I set up camp, cooked dinner, and visited.  Brent went into Fire-pit Cave to check it out, but Matt told him it only went about 20 feet before ending in collapse.  It connected with Fortymile Cave at one point, though.

Later that evening Scott Linn Came in and joined our group.  He's done a lot of caving in Peru, Guatemala, and in the United States; including Lechuguilla.  I soon went to bed, and got ready for our big day tomorrow!

First Idaho Cave

Today I went into my first Idaho cave.  While it is certainly very small, it still counts :)  Jump Creek Cave is in the side of the canyon above the waterfall.  It is a crawl for about 20-30 feet, then turns right into a small room.  There are some small mineral deposits hanging from the ceiling, and then the cave ends.