Caving: The Baptism of Darkness
New Mexico was fantastic. When we left beautiful Abbotsford B.C. it was snowing. It snowed all the way through Washington where we made the first of two stops at Krispy Kreme and bloated ourselves on the deepfried crown of America causing me to resolve never to eat more than one Krispy Kreme doughnut again. The light was one so we got a free doughnut each and there was a very tall, skinny, professional, middle-aged, doughnut man running the till. He thought that there was no better job in the world than being the manager of a Krispy Kreme. I could tell from his proud stature... but maybe he was just American.
The Next state was Oregon where it snowed and then Idaho where it continued snowing and even escalated through the high mountain passes. We hit northern Utah where it continued to snow until we got to just north of Moab. Finally we drove into clear and sunny New Mexico and we drove all the way to the very south of New Mexico to Carlsbad. Noteable stops included a couple of Super-Walmarts, Moab (sliprock), and Roswell. Arriving in Carlsbad around 11:00 (41 hours after leaving Abbotsford), we rolled out our sleeping bags and mats in Michael Queen's backyard. This guy Mike, is a bonafide bachelor geologist and at 60 some-odd years of age he is still keen to be cave-guiding a bunch of super-fit OL'ers in the high deserts of NM. After a word of warning about the anthill housing ants that bite fiercer than any wasps you've ever experienced, we settled in for a surprisingly cool, desert sleep under a vast sky of starlight.
Awaking for our first day of caving we were greeted by a clear sky, strong wind and blazing sun (wind chill kept it about 15-20 degrees for most of the days of the trip but sometimes it was much cooler). Off we went to McKittrick Hill where we strolled through inhospitable desert terrain peppered with at least 5 varieties of cacti (including the infamous Lechugea) and many types of thorn covered shrubs. After hopping 2 barbed wire fences we were pumped to go underground and see what all the fuss is about. I had the pleasure of caving all week with Andrea, Lori and Elena who were in fact the only women along on the trip. Over the course of our adventuring, they became known as Stewie's Angels... thanks to Jared. We took a sweet picture, Angel's style.
We spent most of our caving time the first day tromping around looking for the opening of Little Sand cave. After not finding it, we endured a half hour geology lesson from Mike before some other group who was occupying Endless Cave left and we were able to get underground for a very disappointing 15 minutes. This day could have been a disaster but for the heroism of Chris Dyck our fearful leader who after hearing of our plight at the end of the day, took us (while the rest of the group waited in the bus) to Endless Cave. While he's undoing the lock on the cave gate, he looks at us who are eagerly waiting and says, "Mike is a geologist, I'm a caver. Lets go caving." And we did. We ran through that cave as delicately as a caver might stoping to admire certain points until we came to a wall in the cave with a pile of rubble at the bottom of it where Chris stopped. He says, "this is where having a guide pays off" and begins to pull away the rubble from the bottom of the wall revealing a passage-way about the size around of the average person's hips. We squeeze through thinking to ourselves how cool this is, even as though we had been plunked into some Hardy Boys adventure or something similar.
That room was called the WarClub room and it was one of the most pristine and beautiful rooms we saw all week. There were ponds in the room you didn't even know existed until you blew on the surface of the water to create ripples, that's how clear they were. Words cannot express the beauty and wonder of an underground stone metropolis. The roof laden with the most delicate stalactites, the floor wet as it grows in flowstone formations. The room was "living", "growing" stone and it was remarkable.
The day had been redeemed. The rest of caving was an equal or greater adventure for which I will share some highlights for lack of time:
-4X4'ing in the Guadaloupe Range sitting in the box of our beautiful rental Dodge 1500, going through the "dragon's teeth" to get to the beginning of our hike to Gunsight and Sentinel Caves. We were aided on this hike by a "steplog" (ie. 235 steps at 70 degrees) from which we navigated across barren but beautiful wilderness ridges, harrassed by hurricane force winds under beautiful sunlight to find our caves.
-Laughing at Lincoln National "Forest" in new Mexico where you really had to be on your toes to see the trees.
-Discovering the bigger half of Hidden Cave and running around in it's enormity, so giddy that I couldn't even focus on one thing long enough to take a picture because there was so much for my eyes to take in.
-Strolling through the "tourist cave" of Carlsbad and dragging my jaw along on the floor in front of me the whole time.
-Posing with Jared in Carlsbad cave... for the caving calendar :)
-Hearing all the dirt on Chris Dyck from his best friend who was on the trip as a guide.
-Eating at In 'n Out Burgers in California on the way home
-Hitting 9 states on our sweet road-trip
-Not dying when a wheel fell off the bus on the way home (thank you God). Getting a 120 MPH car ride with a California Highway Patrol trooper who told us to put on our seatbelts cause he'd been known to speed and then getting to stay in a Motel in California with a pool and palm trees for 24 hours while the bus was fixed.
-Eating 13 Krispy Kreme doughnuts to best Rob Lewis' record from the previous trip... not cool.
-Coming home with a tan after an amazing adventure exploring one of the final frontiers on earth that man has not fully discovered.
pictures will follow... sometime.
I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while, you guys deserve better.
love you all.
PS. in case it wasn't made clear in my "Irony" post... her name is Brittany and she rocks.
The Next state was Oregon where it snowed and then Idaho where it continued snowing and even escalated through the high mountain passes. We hit northern Utah where it continued to snow until we got to just north of Moab. Finally we drove into clear and sunny New Mexico and we drove all the way to the very south of New Mexico to Carlsbad. Noteable stops included a couple of Super-Walmarts, Moab (sliprock), and Roswell. Arriving in Carlsbad around 11:00 (41 hours after leaving Abbotsford), we rolled out our sleeping bags and mats in Michael Queen's backyard. This guy Mike, is a bonafide bachelor geologist and at 60 some-odd years of age he is still keen to be cave-guiding a bunch of super-fit OL'ers in the high deserts of NM. After a word of warning about the anthill housing ants that bite fiercer than any wasps you've ever experienced, we settled in for a surprisingly cool, desert sleep under a vast sky of starlight.
Awaking for our first day of caving we were greeted by a clear sky, strong wind and blazing sun (wind chill kept it about 15-20 degrees for most of the days of the trip but sometimes it was much cooler). Off we went to McKittrick Hill where we strolled through inhospitable desert terrain peppered with at least 5 varieties of cacti (including the infamous Lechugea) and many types of thorn covered shrubs. After hopping 2 barbed wire fences we were pumped to go underground and see what all the fuss is about. I had the pleasure of caving all week with Andrea, Lori and Elena who were in fact the only women along on the trip. Over the course of our adventuring, they became known as Stewie's Angels... thanks to Jared. We took a sweet picture, Angel's style.
We spent most of our caving time the first day tromping around looking for the opening of Little Sand cave. After not finding it, we endured a half hour geology lesson from Mike before some other group who was occupying Endless Cave left and we were able to get underground for a very disappointing 15 minutes. This day could have been a disaster but for the heroism of Chris Dyck our fearful leader who after hearing of our plight at the end of the day, took us (while the rest of the group waited in the bus) to Endless Cave. While he's undoing the lock on the cave gate, he looks at us who are eagerly waiting and says, "Mike is a geologist, I'm a caver. Lets go caving." And we did. We ran through that cave as delicately as a caver might stoping to admire certain points until we came to a wall in the cave with a pile of rubble at the bottom of it where Chris stopped. He says, "this is where having a guide pays off" and begins to pull away the rubble from the bottom of the wall revealing a passage-way about the size around of the average person's hips. We squeeze through thinking to ourselves how cool this is, even as though we had been plunked into some Hardy Boys adventure or something similar.
That room was called the WarClub room and it was one of the most pristine and beautiful rooms we saw all week. There were ponds in the room you didn't even know existed until you blew on the surface of the water to create ripples, that's how clear they were. Words cannot express the beauty and wonder of an underground stone metropolis. The roof laden with the most delicate stalactites, the floor wet as it grows in flowstone formations. The room was "living", "growing" stone and it was remarkable.
The day had been redeemed. The rest of caving was an equal or greater adventure for which I will share some highlights for lack of time:
-4X4'ing in the Guadaloupe Range sitting in the box of our beautiful rental Dodge 1500, going through the "dragon's teeth" to get to the beginning of our hike to Gunsight and Sentinel Caves. We were aided on this hike by a "steplog" (ie. 235 steps at 70 degrees) from which we navigated across barren but beautiful wilderness ridges, harrassed by hurricane force winds under beautiful sunlight to find our caves.
-Laughing at Lincoln National "Forest" in new Mexico where you really had to be on your toes to see the trees.
-Discovering the bigger half of Hidden Cave and running around in it's enormity, so giddy that I couldn't even focus on one thing long enough to take a picture because there was so much for my eyes to take in.
-Strolling through the "tourist cave" of Carlsbad and dragging my jaw along on the floor in front of me the whole time.
-Posing with Jared in Carlsbad cave... for the caving calendar :)
-Hearing all the dirt on Chris Dyck from his best friend who was on the trip as a guide.
-Eating at In 'n Out Burgers in California on the way home
-Hitting 9 states on our sweet road-trip
-Not dying when a wheel fell off the bus on the way home (thank you God). Getting a 120 MPH car ride with a California Highway Patrol trooper who told us to put on our seatbelts cause he'd been known to speed and then getting to stay in a Motel in California with a pool and palm trees for 24 hours while the bus was fixed.
-Eating 13 Krispy Kreme doughnuts to best Rob Lewis' record from the previous trip... not cool.
-Coming home with a tan after an amazing adventure exploring one of the final frontiers on earth that man has not fully discovered.
pictures will follow... sometime.
I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while, you guys deserve better.
love you all.
PS. in case it wasn't made clear in my "Irony" post... her name is Brittany and she rocks.
posted by Stewart at
11:12 AM
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