Millrace Cave May 24

Aaron suggested a trip to Millrace Cave near Carrizozo to have a play with my new distoX2/PDA survey kit and for Aaron to create a structure for motion model of a passage. Emily was keen to come along too. I was impressed with how innocuous the entrance was for being a stone's throw from the road. Although a gypsum cave, it is directly overlain by a young basaltic lava flow. The gypsum had some beautiful blue banding and structures and even some pretty secondary selenite growth. I had low expectations so was overall somewhat impressed by the cave. Aaron led us down a bedding plane passage into a pleasantly sinuous vadose passage. This continued for hundreds of feet, eventually ending at a sump. 

We then climbed down through a hole in the floor near the entrance which put us into a couple hundred feet of particularly beautiful vadose passage. Rather abruptly and without warning the dry streamway plunged down a spacious 10m deep pit. We rigged up and dropped down after Emily's SRT crash course.

Once down we explored on a little further, to our surprise encountering a seemingly healthy mouse. Further on Aaron rigged the second short drop. The main passage continued along, eventually reaching a long pool. This pool was completely covered by mm-thick calcite rafts so we left in undisturbed- very neat, I haven't seen such rafts in a long time. Aaron ventured up a lofty climb we spotted, seemingly gaining the virgin extension of the vadose streamway opposite the pit drop. For another day we decided. I found a similar climb and clambering along found myself at the top of the second rope drop, not nearly as high as Aaron had made it. Back at the bottom of the first drop Emily and I played with photos (for photos' sake) while Aaron took a great number of photos to make a 3D model later.

Once satisfied, we worked our way back up and out the cave, hitting the surface around 9pm at night with impressive lightning on the northeast horizon. It was a fun trip and I'd actually be interested in going back and having a better look at the cave. Thanks to Aaron and Emily.