Unable to convince anyone to do the trip I wanted to do, I decided to tag along on a trip to an obscure and seldom-visited/found cave called Tory Canyon. Armed with someone who had been there only a year before, we thought we had a decent chance of actually finding it. A long, but pleasant, stroll in wet West Coast bush and light rain across tannin-brewed rivers and creeks found us in the general vicinity of the cave where overhangs, arches, bluffs and sculpted rocks line the gently cascading creek. Then the search began. Caves are easy things to lose in West Coast bush, but we were assured that the hole we were looking for was quite sizable, which led to much puzzlement as to why we could not find the cave. After realizing we needed to go a bit further up the creek before deviating up the correct side valley, we eventually found ourselves looking up at the impressive 15m by 15m arch entrance to Tory Canyon Cave. Oddly enough, the cave's dimensions rapidly diminish to a comparatively narrow canyon with a little bedrock stream. Some small waterfall climbs found us looking up a tomo skylight entrance. Continuing on we came to more squeezes and crawls and several branching passages. One of us did a short climb to discover a new entrance not marked on the survey. Once our curiosity was adequately satisfied, we headed out and began the somehow longer and wetter walk back to the car. Several of the party expressed amazement that we actually found the cave, sentiments I wish were made aware to me before I joined them! It is a beautiful region I will have to return to explore further.
Returning to the entrance
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