Mystery Hole

After visiting Hutchings Hole, we went in search of another cave, and after another long drive across the bumpy roads of the West Desert, saw something strange out in the distance--a hole. Okay, a hole doesn't sound that exotic. But just wait. You'll see.

Nope, this wasn't the hole. This was the hole next to the hole. It had been excavated by miners at one time.

The real hole was much bigger. We had to climb over a fence to get to it.

Because if you came upon this hole unsuspecting in a vehicle, it would swallow the entire vehicle.

And many more. Here's a little perspective for this hole, with a person walking on the other side of it. It has several names, but I'm going to call it "Mystery Hole," which is what our guide called it.

Part of it curves under, and a lowered rope has measured the depth at about 100 feet. The sides are very loose soil, so it's not safe to rappel into the pit. Search and rescue teams sometimes come out and use Mystery Hole to practice highlines, setting up a line across the pit and then lowering someone down in the middle of it.

Down at the bottom of the pit is an old ladder. The story is that the miners had at one time dug the little hole all the way down to the same level as the bottom, tunneled over, and then took the ladder in that way. I'm not sure what they were looking for.

I spotted a nest about 3/4 of the way down the hole, but didn't see any birds around.

Mystery Hole certainly has some mysteries associated with it. The sinkhole is thought to be formed by piping, which if I understood correctly, is when water is pushed upwards and dissolved away the overlying layers. There must have been a series of underground pipes or tunnels to help move the sediment away, but it probably wasn't anything as direct as a river. The sinkhole is several hundred feet above the highest level of Lake Bonneville.

Can you see the truck in the background? A little more perspective! If you'd like to visit the hole, you can find more info, including coordinates, in the Millard County Visitor's Guide (available in and near Millard County, Utah). Be prepared to drive a long way on bumpy roads to get there. 

Or save your tailbone and just enjoy the photos here!

A Trip to Hutchings Hole

I've been doing a fair bit of caving lately, trying to get it out of my system and take advantage of the good weather before winter sets in. A couple weekends ago I joined a Tri-Grotto get-together, where I met lots of cavers. I decided to visit Hutchings Hole with a group. To get there we drove a long way on bumpy gravel roads through sagebrush-covered terrain. Much of it looked like the photo above.

Finally we reached the end of the road (which then turned into an ATV trail). It was time to park, get our gear, and hike up to the cave. Sometimes finding the cave can be a whole adventure in itself, but fortunately we had a couple of people who had been to the cave before, including one who had GPS coordinates to a cave that had a different name but matched the description. (This cave has many names, because it has been "discovered" many times.) After a slight detour, we were in the right spot.

Here's some of the group hiking up the hill. We had the rare sight of a mostly cloudy sky over the Great Basin terrain.

Within a five minute walk, we were at the edge of the cave entrance. And it was quite a cave entrance! A gaping hole about 40 feet wide and 15 feet across led to a dark passage below. There was a dropoff of about 10 feet to get into the hole.

An obligatory butt shot. Here they are discussing the best way to get down into the hole, which now appeared deeper than it was in their memories.

A rope was rigged, but a tree branch was found to be in an opportune location so that the rope could just be used as a handline and no rappelling or ascending gear was necessary.

The inside of the cave was full of big breakdown blocks. The cave sloped down quite steeply, so we had to carefully pick our way though the rocks. We could see the huge entrance from almost every spot in the cave. 

But near the back there was a hole going down through the boulders. I followed a couple other cavers down a handline and found that there was quite a bit more passage. There wasn't anything particularly notable-no cave formations, water passages, or exotic cave biota. But it was still fun going down a passageway where I didn't know what was at the end of it.

Here's a skeleton that was near the entrance, probably a jackrabbit.

And here's the cave entrance from below. Even though the cave wasn't all that big, it was still a fun trip. The fault-block cave was quite a bit different than many of the dissolution caves in the area. And it was great to meet some other cavers.

We hiked back to the vehicles, happy to have visited a little bit more of the subterranean world, and ready to go on the next expedition.

Into Ice Cave

A couple weeks ago I took some work colleagues into a nearby cave. It's not real large, but it has some interesting features in it. To go in, first we had to unlock the gate.

Desert Boy doesn't look too sure about this outing. He wasn't supposed to go, but my husband had a water meeting that ran long, and since I knew Desert Boy could handle the cave, he got to go.

He was happy when he was doing something physical, otherwise he was ready to leave. He made the cave seem quite a bit bigger and was able to squeeze along some of the rather small passageways.

Do you see the scallops on the cave walls? They are an indication that there was once flowing water in the cave. I've been in this cave when water flowed into it--brrrr! It required crawling through some cold creek water. The scallops are found at all levels of the cave and you'll see them in the following pictures, too. Obviously there used to be a lot more water flowing in the cave.

Here's Bryan, who was eager to explore every little nook and cranny, hoping to find some new passageway.

Bryan, Travis, and Nicole reached a deadend and had to turn around. But before they could get out of the passage, I made them stop and pose for a picture. I'm mean that way. 

I didn't have any kneepads that fit Desert Boy, but it turned out he hardly had to crawl, even though the rest of us did.

Here's Nicole in an upper passage. There is just a little bit of maziness to the cave that makes it fun to explore.

I love looking down the deep, dark passageways and wondering where they go.

Travis was willing to not just wonder, but crawl around and find out.

Of course I'm always on the lookout for cave insects, but I didn't find a lot on this trip. This beetle was one of the more interesting finds. There was also a lot of rodent scat in the cave, some of it fairly fresh. But we didn't run into any live rodents. 

Another crawling passage, this one with plenty of dirt on the floor. And you know what you get when you put Desert Boy and dirt together...

...yum. Or not. I just hope he is getting his immune system strong.

After an hour and a half of checking out the entire cave, it was time to leave. But we'll be back!

Adventures at Whipple Cave

Over the weekend I went to Whipple Cave in the Egan Mountains of Nevada to teach a cave rescue class. Earlier in the summer I went to Indiana to teach cave rescue as part of a National Cave Rescue Commission class. This class was on a much smaller scale, with members of the Southern Nevada Grotto and local firefighters attending.

We reached the cave via a short trail and started practicing various techniques right at the entrance, where a 60-foot drop leads into the cave (you need at least 80 feet of rope, though, in order to reach the anchors). 

We were having record high temperatures this weekend, so about in the middle of the day we decided it was too hot to stay outside. So we rappelled into the cave with enough gear to do our practice sessions inside the cave.

Here's the entrance of Whipple Cave looking up from the bottom of the pit. There are actually two holes, separated by a natural arch. The rappel is mainly against the rock wall, except for the last fifteen feet, which is free. 

I didn't take all that many photos during the weekend because I was concentrating on what we were doing, but I did manage a few.

The outstanding feature in Whipple Cave is this enormous column near the back of the cave. To get there you have to cross a boulder field and go through the keyhole, which involves squeezing through a hole and then jumping across a deep crack onto a boulder.

We found several good pits right in that area to do some vertical practice.

Here's Ben ready to haul our patient out of the pit.

Bill and Tom are doing a safety check on the system.

Micah sees that Ben is pulling plenty hard so he can just tend rope.

And up comes our patient, enjoying the smooth ride. After we did a few practices, we took out the litter and backboard.

Our cooperative patient even stood up and moved right where we wanted him with the Oregon Spine Splint attached.

Then he got buckled into the Sked litter before taking a ride through the keyhole. Now we know we can do it--although it would be better to have a lot more people to help. One thing that became apparent during all the practice was that if someone got hurt at the back of the cave, it would take a lot of people--15 to 20 would be nice--to get a patient out in a reasonable amount of time (8-10 hours). 

I always recommend that people who go caving take at least a basic rescue class. It certainly makes you cave a little safer if you realize what it will take to get you out of a cave if you get hurt.

Back at the entrance we climbed out of the cave, packed up gear, and headed home or to a campsite for the night.

The next morning we got back together and reviewed what we had done the day before. I challenged the class to set up a haul/lower system, belay, and attendant line in 20 minutes at the cave entrance. They managed to do it in about 30 minutes. Then we went on to practice counterbalances and some basic rope climbing skills down in the cave. 

Another group was visiting the cave, so we had to use some different anchors than we had the day before. We found that one worked better for doing a haul, so it was good to be forced to think outside the box.

The other group had started climbing out before we did, but they were using some primitive climbing gear, so it didn't take long for our group to pass them. We had nearly all the gear put away and were getting ready to go back to the trucks when we heard a call for help from down in the pit.

One of the guys had climbed a few feet off the ground, but he couldn't go up or down and was exhausted. At first we thought it was a joke, but when we took a better look at him, we realized he was seriously stuck. He was drenched in sweat and so tired he couldn't help himself at all. He had a buddy down below him, and their wives and kids were up near the top. They wanted the wives and kids to start pulling on the rope to help him get up. 

We said we would be happy to assist, and quickly rigged up a haul system, and created a belay and edge attendant lines. Earlier in the day it had taken 30 minutes to do this. Now, after a little more practice and in a for real situation, it only took about 10 minutes. Ten minutes later we had the man out of the pit.

I'm glad it all turned out well. I don't think the man will be rappelling into another cave anytime soon--or anytime again for that matter. He was quite spooked by the incident, and he realized that if we weren't there he could have been in serious trouble. It's very dangerous to dangle in a harness because you start losing circulation to your legs, and that can lead to life-threatening injuries.

We all learned a lot during the weekend, too. This was a sharp class, and they learned fast. Now we need to keep practicing those skills so we stay fresh and ready for the next incident.

Mock Rescue-Sullivan's Cave

The last day of the cave rescue class is an all-day mock rescue. As an instructor, I had volunteered to tag along as a "bat" with the communications task force. That meant I would follow along and remain in the background unless any safety issues arose, and then I could squeak and offer a suggestion. 

I arrived at Sullivan's Cave soon after the mock rescue was announced and watched the first group arrive with their personal gear and some group gear.

They also brought the reporting party, Don, who said he had been caving with three friends and one had gotten hurt and he had come out to get help. He offered to take the rescuers into the cave, but instead he was offered a chair and was repeatedly questioned by Marty to get every ounce of information out of him that she could.

Meanwhile, a gear cache was being assembled with ropes, wedding, communications wire, a cable ladder, an IRT pack, a litter, and more.

A tent was set up over the Incident Command Post.

And then the comm team was sent into the cave as the second team and I started following them. They did an excellent job laying the wire quickly and keeping it out of the way of subsequent teams. Usually later teams that enter the cave are told to follow the comm wire. The biggest compliment this team got was one team got lost because they couldn't find the wire, it was camouflaged so well!

The comm wire allows military field phones to be hooked up and communications between the cave and surface to occur. It saves a lot of time and energy than having someone going in and out of the cave to pass notes, especially with difficult passage.

As the comm team waited for more wire after running two spools in, we watched one of the "original cavers" exit the cave. He had hypothermia and made it difficult for his rescuers, but they persisted and did an excellent job of moving him out of the cave.

Meanwhile, another member of the "original cave team" had gotten lost while trying to find the entrance, but a search party found him in short order and got him out of the cave. That left just the injured caver, Jess, to get out.

Jess had a tib/fib fracture (broken leg), so she had to be packaged in a litter. Part of the cave was steep, so a rigging team prepared it for her exit.

Jess was moving before I got to see her. She was in a cave passage with waist-high water, and some of the rescuers were starting to get cold. So I traded places with another "bat" and followed some of the cold rescuers out of the cave.

On the way I managed to snap a photo of the great placement of this comm wire spool--on the ceiling out of everyone's way.

The entrance area was rigged with three different haul systems.

Jeff and Ellen patiently waiting for the patient to arrive at their part of the cave.

The area right outside the cave was also rigged.

The Incident Command Post had many more nametags hanging down from the awning, signifying who was doing what on the incident.

Finally a group arrived carrying Jess from the cave entrance to the parking area. Hurray!

She was unpackaged and a real medical doctor made sure she was okay. She was a bit on the cold side despite a wetsuit and blankets, but after a few minutes she seemed to be warming up just fine in the thick Indiana heat.

The rescue wasn't over just because Jess was out. There was still lots of gear to be washed!

And then the final step--Billy and Harold loading it into the big U-Haul truck and storing it until needed for a cave rescue--or next year's class.

It was a great 2009 class. Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make it happen.