Underground in Nevada

 A couple weekends ago I joined some friends to venture into a couple caves to see if they'd be appropriate to use for an upcoming Small Party Cave Rescue Class. We met up at a primitive campsite, which made a beautiful relaxing spot.

The next morning we hiked to the cave, where this beautiful hole beckoned.

We put two ropes into the pit so we could rappel and ascend the 180+ feet in pairs.

Here's Bill on a slopey part of the rappel.

Once we got to the bottom, the room opened up and sported some large formations.

Here's a closer view of some of the larger stalagmites.

Chris took a closer look at an insect we found.

In one small side passage we saw a small shield, about five inches across.

It didn't take long to check out the cave, so then it was time to start heading back up.

Here's the view for the last part of the climb. It's great going into caves, but it's also wonderful to emerge to the sunlight.

On the way back down, Tom found a nice gopher snake.

We wanted to see one more cave that day, so we gathered our cave gear and rope and trudged up a hill.

This cave had a short drop onto a slope.

Numerous formations were stained with packrat excrement.

Over on the side we rigged two ropes for the 145 drop to the lower section of the cave.

Watching others go down, down, into the underground. (There's a catchy caving song that starts out with that line.)

At the bottom we checked out neat bones, formations, signatures from the 1920s, and even a little lead (that pinched out).

Once again it was time to climb out.

Seeing different caves always reminds me of the wonderful diversity of our planet.

April Happenings

 As I went through my April photos, I realized I had a lot of odds and ends that I hadn't blogged about but wanted to include for when I print out my blog book for the year. April was a fairly busy month, with a train ride, t-ball, lots of bike riding (including Desert Girl without training wheels), cave rescue class, junior cave scientists, and lots of bird sightings. We also had wonderful clouds, although most of them didn't produce much in the way of precipitation.

Fortunately we had clear skies for the lunar eclipse. Generally I only take Milky Way photos during the new moon, but with the eclipse, it was dark enough I could get the galaxy (plus some light pollution from Las Vegas) plus the eclipsed moon all in one shot).

The moon turned so red during the eclipse. It was really beautiful, and I was glad I had gotten up to witness it. (If you didn't, there's another lunar eclipse in September!)

The photograph-the-full-moon challenge is going well, although I feel like in some ways I've reached the limitations of my equipment. But I will try to keep getting full moon photos in interesting locations. The next full moon is coming soon!

The kids were so excited Easter morning. We had a little Easter egg hunt in the house.

Then we got all dressed up to go to church. The kids sure clean up well!

And since we don't get enough of these, we did a family photo.

Later Desert Girl got a haircut because she was having trouble taking care of her longer hair and I was no longer willing to battle. She got a super cute haircut from Chandra. She has been taking really good care of it. And then last night she cut her own bangs quite noticeably. Sigh. Actually I laughed, which didn't make Desert Girl happy. I'll post a photo soon.

I have about four hours of EMT training every month to keep up my continuing education hours. This was one of the trainings, about pediatric emergencies taught by a pediatric nurse. It was really good training.

In the same location not much later we had a fun baby shower. It's so great to be welcoming a new baby into our community!

One of our frequent destinations is the post office parking lot, where we ride bikes, run around, and play on wagons. This photo must have been taken during spirit week, on pajama day.

The kids and I take various adventure walks. They love climbing trees, jumping over the creek, and building forts. And Desert Boy is very much into guns. I try not to roll my eyes too much.

The great horned owls are frequently in the yard. We welcome them. They are much preferable mousers than the mama skunk with her four young I saw last night.

Although we had such a dry winter, we did get a little extra snow in April, worrying us because all the fruit trees had blossomed so early. The snow looked pretty on the willows.

It's hard to believe May is almost over now. Maybe I'll catch up with it a little sooner than April!

Cave Rescue Training - April 2015

 It had been a few years since we had a National Cave Rescue Commission training in our area. With a little nudging from my friend Andy, I picked a date, found some instructors willing to volunteer their time, and got ready for a fun weekend.

On Friday we had fifteen students come to improve their single rope technique (SRT) skills in the morning. We had seven single ropes up in the fire station, plus a rebelay course that included some J-hangs and a guided rappel. It was a challenging rebelay course, but fun! Here's Deanna doing the guided rappel, which would keep you out of a waterfall or get you over a pothole or some other obstacle.

In the afternoon we went out to some nearby cliffs and did raises and lowers. It was a windy afternoon, but everyone did well and learned something.


While we were prepping the site, I got this fun shot.


In the evening you could tell we were getting a little tired…but we were still laughing! (Can you see what's happened in the photo below?)

The next morning we changed gears and started the Orientation to Cave Rescue class, a two-day class. We spent the morning and early afternoon in the classroom. Here's Bonny doing the best psych considerations talk I've ever seen. It was also perfect for keeping the students awake after lunch as they had to get up.

Later in the afternoon it was time for the obstacle course, which teaches how to move a litter and tests leadership/followership skills. One particularly fun challenge was going through a narrow fork in the tree.

They did it well! Then everyone had to climb through the tree, which took some teamwork.

Sunday it was time for the mock rescue to test their skills. Thanks to Bonny and Tori for getting some of these photos, as I ended up being one of the patients. They had to come find me and carry me out of the cave.

When the students arrived, they got organized. The incident commander sent everyone to the cave.


Then they were divided into teams with different missions.

One of the search teams found me and then had to keep me warm and treat my injuries while they waited for a litter to arrive.


It took me about ten minutes to go to my place in the cave uninjured, but over three hours to get me out, largely due to patient packaging and then various vertical obstacles. It just goes to show that you want to cave carefully or you could end up spending a lot longer in a cave than you had planned!

On the hike back I discussed the mock rescue with Andy. We were both very happy with how everyone had done. Thanks so much to all the instructors, students, Great Basin National Park, Ely District BLM, and Snake Valley Volunteer Fire Department for their support!

The National Cave Rescue Commission has upcoming training--a Small Party Assisted Rescue seminar in June in Lund, Nevada (with only four spots left), and a weeklong seminar with various levels in Park City, Kentucky (next to Mammoth Cave) at the end of July. You can find more info at the NCRC website.

A Better-Than-Expected Adventure

With our very warm March, we spent more time outdoors than usual, and one Sunday we decided to take a hike to check out a cave I had the coordinates to. I didn't have much more information than the coordinates, so we didn't know what to expect. We packed up and enjoyed the hike, seeing a few splashes of color as wildflowers like Indian paintbrush (above) and milkvetch (below) bloomed.

This juniper on the top of a cliff looked like a bonsai tree.

It took us about 45 minutes to find the cave. I rigged a rope to check out the entrance and found this western fence lizard hanging out on a midden part way down.

I had managed to forget a descent device (never mind that I have seven), so I rappelled on a munter. (It's great to know different techniques--if you'd like to learn more, check out this upcoming cave rescue training.) Then I climbed out and lowered my husband and Desert Boy. Desert Girl didn't want to be lowered, and I wanted to move the rope to an easier spot to get out of the cave, so we went in from this side, where we could see the dark mouth of the cave beckoning.

We only found one historic signature in the cave, Cliff Bellander on June 25, 1955.

The entrance descended steeply over boulders and cobbles.

Before long we saw old, weathered formations. The floor was primarily a packrat midden.

The cave kept descending fast, and I was glad I had my 20 feet of webbing to help belay the kids down the steep sections.

Most of the cave was very dry, but we did find this wet formation with very pretty decorations.

The cave wasn't large, but it was certainly larger than we were expecting. And more beautiful too. It's such a treat when things turn out that way! Then it was time to head out. Desert Boy scrambled out with the help of the rope before I even finished taking photos. Desert Girl tried, but needs a little more strength.

She was happy to be hauled out.

I wanted to get a family photo, but those seem to be hard to get when we all look happy.

We knew the truck wasn't far, and the kids wanted to get to the snacks. So they took off. I was impressed with how Desert Girl ran through the bushes, jumping over small obstacles.

I was a lot slower, pausing to take photos, like this bitterbrush seed.

It was a fun adventure and a good day.