Carrizo Badlands April 27

Caver friends were planning a late season trip back to the Carrizo Badlands to make the most of atypically cool temperatures. I had my grandpa's funeral to be at in San Diego Monday morning and a meeting in Los Angeles Tuesday, but I got myself organized and drove down pre-dawn to meet the others at the trailhead turnoff. We made good time hiking the usual route out of Andrade Canyon and then down the first alluvial fan remnant and a steep mud cliff to Sidewinder Cave. On the way we spotted a few nice beds with particularly nice fossil shells. Greg and I surveyed the bottom half of this neat cave (~300ft), mostly walking with lots of skylights, meeting Carol and Carl who surveyed the upper half. After checking out the rest of the cave, and then lunch, Greg and I checked out Fredrik and Vincent's cave nearby, only to find they were just shy of surveying up to the base of an unclimbable 10ft drop. So we continued on up the wash to survey another cave I had previously checked out. 

Sidewinder Cave (and below)

We had a second first look into this cave, Greg soon christening it Elephant Cave for the elephant-like skin the mud crusts made on some of the walls (and not unfortunately because an elephant could fit in it). We made it up the first dryfall climb, then found a way up the second one I stopped at last time. A short distance further we went along an oyster bed floor crawl and then an amazing hairpin turn in the cave that almost turned completely back on itself, we decided we might as well return to the entrance and start surveying. We worked well as a team, surveying the whole cave (419ft) before our 5pm meeting time. Though not particularly long, we both thought it a nice cave with interesting features, sporty climbs, and some nice verticality that made it different from a lot of other caves in the area.

Elephant Cave (and below)

The others soon joined us and we tackled a steep gut up a mud slope. Once on top it was easy travel over ridges and then the old fan surface back to the trailhead. It was by far the most productive day we have spent in the area, with two caves complete and two more partial surveys. The temperature was very forgiving and the skies were crisper than usual.

The day ended with a drive to Alpine, an overdue dinner, a brief catch-up with family, and a good night's sleep ahead of a remembrance for my Grandpa Jim. 

Carrizo Badlands Jan 18-19

With so much more mud caves to survey, several of us rallied for a second time in two weeks to head into the Carrizo Badlands. This time to make the most of the time constraints we had, Heather and I backpacked in Saturday with the plan of doing some mop-up survey in Chaos Canyon and then meeting cavers to survey another nearby cave I had tentatively been referring to as Five Star ("*****") for the 5/5 rating I gave it for its length and overall quality, not with any intention for that to be its final name. Anyway a chill morning and drive got Heather and I backpacking in the mid-afternoon. The temperature was pleasant but with the weight of lots of liquids I soon got sweaty. We did my cross-badland traverse route in 2 hours, smooth other than plenty of grumbling from Heather at the steep and loose slopes. 

We dropped all our gear at the Chaos wash junction then strolled up to the Chaos Canyon North caves. After a quick crash course in surveying for Heather, we finished surveying the second cave. I scouted the third cave (not particularly comfortable dimensions but worth surveying) and then we surveyed up through the top of it. The bottom half of the cave was mostly knee-crawling on sharp rocks, then after a short boulder climb the cave changed to follow a moderately-dipping oyster bed to its top entrance. We wrapped the survey around 6pm, (completing the second cave's survey at 275ft and the third one at 98ft) and worked our way back through the cave to set up our primitive camp on the sharp shell-crete floor and satisfy our grumbling stomachs. A canned margarita, hot meal, tiny fire, and bright stars made for a very pleasant (if cold and desolate) evening.

Overnight the temperatures dipped much lower than the 45F forecast and probably approached freezing. Relatedly we were a little slow to get moving until the first hint of sunlight dipped into our wash. We packed a daypack, leaving the bulk of our gear for the hike out, then walked down the wash towards Five Star, leaving a few notes on flagging for our friends to find us (removed on the way out). Heather and I went through the main passage of Five Star to the top entrance, then went overland around to the lower entrance. 

After a snack and water we started surveying in from the lower entrance. About 9 stations in we heard scraping noises, surprising in that they were in the upstream direction. It turned out to be Fredrik, Carol, and Carl (once again two cavers bailing last minute). They followed us out to the lower entrance to say hello and come up with a plan. I had briefly called the cave Carrizo King (as likely longest in the area), but was quickly vetoed with the others actually preferring Five Star Cave and so thus it was officially christened. Happily, Carl had an all digital surveying setup like me so I knew that would help a lot with efficiency. I led them partway around so that they could survey in from the top entrance and we could continue our survey up towards them. All-in-all the surveying went smoothly and we ticked off all side leads in our section. Partway through there was a dramatic meander cutoff where about 50ft of passage was shortcut but cutting 2ft through a wall. At our station 26 we joined their station 26 to tie-off the main passage survey of about 750ft. Excellent! Regrettably all this productivity meant no photos though.

About 2:30p, Heather and I were out of time and needed to start heading back. Carl, Carol, and Fredrik rallied to survey the side branch passage as we took off back for our stashed gear. The report I later got was that they surveyed another 280ft with two leads and more cave to come back to. So as I guessed and hoped we managed to find a cave over a thousand feet in length, a notable milestone for mud caves most places! Heather and I had a less eventful hike out, taking 1hr50min to reach the car. We battled recreational vehicle caravans on the drive back and excitedly wolfed down dinner in Temecula.

Thanks to Heather, Carol, Fredrik, and Carl for some productive surveying. I guess we have to go back to finish! And then comes the real fun of compiling the surveys and drafting the caves. Below is my finished map of Chaos Canyon Complex.

Angeles Slot Canyons Aug 11

I had reason to deeply scour aerial photos and lidar images of the northern portion of the Angeles National Forest, which turned up a few interesting surprises. In the northern portion of the Ridge Basin sedimentary rocks I could see a tilted slab of more resistant sandstone beds with three twisty cuts through its face. Lidar showed a total drop of about 50 m each over a short distance, and despite remarkably small catchments, seemed like promising accessible slot canyons that had probably gone under the radar of canyoneers. Not wanting to get my hopes up too much, I sought out partnership with Alden, a friend nearby with the most notable enthusiasm for descending any given first descent. We set a date and got an early start to beat the 100F midday heat. After meeting at Pyramid Lake, we carpooled onto the forestry roads near Quail Lake. Unfortunately there was a bit more deep sand than anticipated in one section and my weenie Prius lost traction, forcing us to retreat back a bit and hike an extra 0.7 miles. This was still done easy enough, despite having to steeply climb a few hundred feet on a buried pipeline clearing to gain the ridge. From here the going was easy enough to follow ridgelines down to the head of the canyons. They certainly looked to be as short as I thought, but they looked like they could be interesting. We dropped into the head of the easternmost slot. Because these slots are very minor tributaries of Apple Canyon, we ended up naming this first canyon Sauce.

Sauce turned out be be the best canyon, with the deepest twistiest slot, fun downclimbs, and two nice clean fluted rappels to 70 feet. It had been a while since both Alden and I were in a canyon so it was particularly fun to slip back into our groove of planning our descent through teamwork and careful anchor selection. The rock was a little soft and crumbly, but all in all we had a great time descending this rare SoCal mini-slot. Once down, we walked down the scrubby (but mercifully poison oak-free) main drainage to a ridgeline we could steeply ascend to a powerline pylon, then loop back around for the second canyon. It was already hot and this climb was punishing so we stopped for a bit in the shade while we could. 

The next canyon we named Slice. This one was not quite as deep and so the sun beat down on us most of the time and it was less photogenic. This canyon had a couple obvious rappels to 90 feet and several 10-15 foot drops that we got down by me meat anchoring Alden, then having him assist me in a downclimb. The last drop in the canyon was a little more awkward with a scratchy constriction we had to rappel through to get down. So while this canyon was a little more sporting with its downclimbs, it did not have quite as much appeal as Sauce. We ascended the sweaty ridge a second time. On the way we got a good view of the third canyon which was more open and appeared to have less obvious anchors and so we decided to pass, happy with two first descents of decent canyons in 4 hours.

After downing some Gatorades in the shade of the gas station in Gorman, we met up with Alden's ride and we said our goodbyes. Overall it was great to see my friend after a couple years and get up to some minor exploration. We thought our canyon discoveries had some potential to be of interest to SoCal canyoners as unique mini-slots.

But wait there's more! I had now set off to do some fieldwork in the area and thought I would first go onto the northern end of the Old Ridge Route, an interesting piece of California history. The Old Ridge Route was considered a modern marvel of engineering when it was completed in 1915, providing the critical motor vehicle link between southern and northern California. The road appears braided from multiple generations with an oiled and graded surface paved over with a highly curvy slab of reinforced concrete with some of these curves later being shortcut with an asphalt paving surface. Driving along, I frequently made transitions to follow the best surface, a minor adventure in a Prius. About 7 miles in I stopped at the ruins of the Tumble Inn to get some photos and was surprised to find that the gate I expected to block the road here was in fact open so I continued on. At 10 miles I reached the best case scenario for another slot canyon I hoped to check out. I knew this one would be light on technicality but heavy on bushwhacking. After some deliberation, I made a couple of call-out arrangements and decided to attempt a solo first descent. I later decided to name this Syncline Slot as the slot canyon has formed along the axis of a prominent syncline in the sandstone layer.

After a short spur road led me to the ridge I had an immediate, unpleasant bushwhacking descent through scratchy, shirt-ripping chapparal. Once in the bottom of the tributary drainage the bushwhacking continued, but with the added bonus of some poison oak to avoid. Poison oak this high in this dry a canyon had me worried about what I would find below, but with care I could avoid it so far and I hoped for the best. The drainage continued with some interesting bedrock floors, not-quite-slot hallways, wind caves, and unfortunately more poison oak, but I was making decent progress and curious about the unknowns below. Right on cue where the lidar indicated the head of the slot canyon would be, there was a dramatic (if ultimately short) drop into a dark slot with nice pothole features and an ideal rock arch I could use as an anchor. I descended the short 20ft rappel and pulled my rope. I was hot, sweaty, and scratched, but my adventure was only just beginning.

Once I pulled my rope I was committed to going down and through this 1100 foot-long slot, whatever lay ahead. Only about five steps from the rappel water started seeping from a spring and I noticed some yellow jackets, which I did not pay much mind to. I managed to dislodge a stick with a step and in an instance I was swarmed with yellow jackets and feeling painful stings to my arm. I ran in a jolt the five steps back up the canyon and thankfully was not followed. Ouch! I got about 4 stings and a good jolt of adrenaline to counteract. Somehow I would need to get past the yellow jackets. I collected myself and realized I did not have much choice. I cautiously returned back downcanyon slowly with careful steps. I approached the boulder where the yellow jackets were, then as smoothly and swiftly as I could I hopped over and rapidly downcanyon, avoiding further stings. I was now hyperalert to dangers. Despite that unpleasantness, what followed was a surprisingly stunning section of slot canyon with reflective pools and hanging fern gardens in a shoulder-width slot. Slowly I worked my way along the straight and down through some short downclimbs. There were a few more yellow jackets to avoid but no more stings were acquired. Eventually the spring water dissipated and the slot continued with a dry floor and ever taller walls.

The slot ended rather abruptly, as expected, at a 20 foot-high ledge drop, beyond which the canyon opened much wider. My anchor options were not great here and I was forced to collect a number of large soft sandstone boulders to build a rockpile anchor. I was thoroughly exhausted and in my sloppiness I managed to drop my one and only rope down the drop. A string of expletives followed that no one heard but me. I now sat down but probably for less than a minute while I evaluated my options. I started to tie up a carabiner to create a fishhook of sorts that I could lower down on paracord to try to hook on the pile of rope below. Before I even really tried I realized this was about as feeble as a claw machine game and abandoned this idea. I realized that I had two pieces of 5/8" webbing left that when tied together and doubled would get me to within about 5 feet of the ground. I was not thrilled but rappelling down this webbing seemed like my best option. I got organized, lowered my pack down the drop (thinking a little less weight could only help), and then carefully weighted my anchor and the webbing. Once again, smooth and fast was the mantra as I lowered myself to the bottom of the drop. Webbing pulled, rope coiled, harness stashed in my pack, I continued on. I was only 700 feet from the streambed of Liebre Gulch, and yet somehow this seemed like the worst part yet with thick unavoidable walls of poison oak. It was the stuff of nightmares for me but I had no choice at this point. I made every attempt to minimize and strategize my contact, sacrificing my trekking poles and lower pant legs whenever possible to spare my face and arms. After four bad patches with mental itches building, I reached the streambed. 

Poison oak gauntlet nightmare fuel

The streambed was dry and stiff and made for easy walking. At one point I yet again had to climb out of the streambed and make careful maneuvers to avoid poison oak and more yellow jackets. Finally I reached the cleared band of vegetation marking a buried pipeline and my way up out of the canyon and back to the car. The clearing was really a strip of tall spikey weeds and travel so steep that it was literally two steps forward and one step back for much of it. As the sun began to near setting I chased the shadows up this slope until I finally reached the rim where I had comparatively easy walking back along a ridge. My final consolation prize for my work was a great sunset over the folded rocks of Liebre Gulch with Pyramid Lake beyond. My verdict of the afternoon's adventure was a two-star trip that could be a four-star canyon if scrub, poison oak, and yellow jackets were to magically disappear. The good was good; the bad was gruesome. It ended up being quite the solo adventure between the hot day, shirt-tearing bushwhacking, yellow jacket stings, and rope-dropping snafu.

Once I got reception I told my callouts I was out and mostly alive. Once back at the car (3hrs45min after departing), it was time for full poison oak quarantine and decontamination procedures. Between exhaustion and priorities, I striped naked in the middle of the forgotten road, carefully piled all my contaminated gear in an Ikea tote bag, and used all three poison oak wipes I had to scrub myself. My initial plan was to stay in the region camping and doing a couple more days of fieldwork but between the now throbbing pain of the yellow jacket stings and poison oak threat, I now felt the need to retreat home for a Tecnu shower and recovery. This ended up being the right move as my arm swelled up considerably and painfully the next day, and even after an urgent care visit and meds, my hand was nearly inoperable for several days after.

Sycamore Sink Dec 16

When exploring caves you almost never know what you are going to get. Some times you get lucky and the unknown rewards you, other times it teases you with lots of effort for nothing. This ended up being a fairly classic cave trip that found me asking myself "why bother?" at one point and then at a later point in the trip answering myself with "THIS!!!" With me showing up on Rob's doorstep the afternoon before he managed to hastily arrange a trip with another local caver Phil into Sycamore Sink, a bottom of the mountain overflow resurgence system they had discovered less than a year before and were still actively exploring. The cave had an excellent draft at its entrance and several kilometers of known cave. Virtually all of the known cave clearly floods and so this was a good weather, dry season only cave. The goal was to continue exploration through this lower flood maze with the hope of working our way up and into more organized passages within Takaka Hill.

Phil showed up right at 10am for our civilized start. We packed quite light with a survey kit, a couple digging tools, and some snacks. We drove less than 10 minutes from Rob's place and then a 10 minute walk to the modest crawl entrance emitting a cold draft of air. The entrance series was a slow 30 meters of crawling and tight clambering through a sharp partially dug, partially blasted tunnel. Once through, the bulk of the cave we saw was either sandy floored walking passage or bedrock floored rifts. All evidence I saw pointed to passages that regularly flood. At one point on the way in Phil led me up a short climb to show me the start of a very nice formation room they had found on a previous trip. We then continued on, the cave sufficiently mazy that I am not sure my brain was able to keep up with the routefinding as Rob and Phil steadily plowed through junction after junction with a specific destination in mind. A little more than an hour from the entrance they led me to the "sand dig" that we reported on a previous trip that they hoped would be the way forward into the mountain. Upon arrival my first dip of the trowel revealed not sandy by clay-rich mud in the awkwardly tight passage. Progress was very hard to make in these conditions but wanting to be a good sport I attacked the mud for over a half-hour while Rob and Phil surveyed up to me. This was pretty grim and I remember thinking not worth getting my cave suit dirty over. I made a little progress but Rob had a look and agreed that this dig should probably be a low priority and so we backtracked and decided to have a look at a few climbing leads instead. 

While I played around trying my phone's lidar scanner, Rob and Phil climbed about 30m or so up an aven finding an elliptical shaped passage that seemed too dense with formations to continue. We tried a second greasy climb where Rob and Phil acted as step-ladder to boost me up into an offshooting passage. I very soon got to a point where I thought a belay would be warranted to continue up the mixed rock and mud continuation of the climb and so retreated back down to the floor. We then tried a third easier greasy mud climb that led up into some breakdown. Some of the breakdown blocks were larger than cars and so the three of us split off to explore different gaps between the boulders. My leads all pinched out but towards the top of breakdown pile Rob and Phil spotted a very curious feature: underneath an SUV-sized boulder was a rear-view-mirror-sized portal that we could look through and see an open space with a real wall. It seemed highly likely that this would put us past the breakdown pile if we could only get through. Attacking the gap with a trowel seemed like it was solid rock beneath and we would not be able to break through. A few meters to the left I spotted another gap between rocks that looked more promising as an upward angling squeeze. I wasn't thrilled by the sharp look of it but thought I might as well give it a try. It was tight enough that I popped my helmet off but the real constriction grinded my chest and pubic bone. It was also tight enough that I paused- was it worth? how hard would it be to get back through? I pushed through the pain and made it out the other side. There was no way the other two would be able to fit through that gap.

Almost immediately I spotted a nicely decorated alcove in front of me. Then getting up to my feet and working to the right I spotted the portal at my foot-level with Phil beyond (Rob was off surveying up the rockfall passage). Looking upward I could see a slightly tricky but very reasonable climb leading through a hallway-sized gap completely framed by excellent draperies and stalactites. I boosted the brightness up on my light to see beyond a vast room completely filled with stunning formations, a major find! Eager to try to allow the other two to come through and join me to explore and almost as eager to not repeat the tight squeeze I had just done, I attacked at the portal from above while Phil attacked it from below. The situation seemed less grim than before as I now realized the floor of the gap was layers of calcite and rocks that could be pried out with mud in between. Phil and I steadily made progress, shifting the lead digger back and forth between us both, the void getting larger without seeming to destabilize the large rocks. It took probably 20 minutes of solid work but Phil and I managed to open it up to something that was now a very reasonable squeeze for him. Phil joined me on the other side and was equally enthused by the look of the decorated room up above us.

Phil helped boost me up the start of the climb (afterward he was able to follow without help), and I led the way into the unknown. Every step I took and turn of the head revealed some beautiful new formation seeing light for the first time. The chamber was only about 10-15m wide but at least 25m tall and at least 50m long. The room was not flat but rather ascended such that we had to climb our way upward to the back. After the first part we reached an area where everything, floor included was formations and so Phil and I switched to boots off to continue. All we had was my phone so I furiously snapped photos at every turn, something a lot better than nothing. All of the photos on this post were from this room, which we will probably called the Loft Gallery or something similar. Phil and I worked our way to back marveling at the variety of formations- draperies, bacon, stals, crystal pools, helictites, sparkling flowstone. Rob soon surveyed up to the squeeze and we had him join us for a second pass through this room. This time we took suits off in addition to boots, wanting to protect this significant find. Rob and Phil were both in agreement that this was the most significant formation room anywhere in the Takaka region. Rob explored a possible lead at the back of the room. I noticed quite a bit of rat droppings on the flowstone, which suggests we must be close to an entrance at this higher level, a small entrance at least. We were all enthused and riding high at this redeeming find! It was certainly the nicest cave passage I had found in several years.

The day was now getting on and so the survey of this room would have to wait another day. We worked our way back out of the cave without incident and did a quick clean in the nearby Takaka River while the sandflies swarmed. After parting with Phil, Rob, Michelle and I had a tasty Thai dinner in Takaka and I ended up staying another night at their place instead of driving up to the caver's hut. All in all an easy highlight of my New Zealand trip.

Moonsilver Karst Dec 13-14

With all of the lidar data from New Zealand karst areas burning a hole in my brain, I was desperate to get in at least a couple days of looking for new caves while in New Zealand. I was not able to recruit anyone else to join me and so needed to pick an area likely to have low risk caves (walk-in caves as opposed to cold, wet or lots of vertical ropework). In looking through these different areas I became particularly interested in the Moonsilver karst area between the Flora Saddle and Asbestos Cottage trailheads. This would require several hours walk to get to and I had the impression the karst field was unexplored other than Moonsilver Cave which sits quite close (really underneath) the track through the area. The lidar revealed some enticing drainages starting blindly at cliffs and other examples of streams sinking into cliffs, which were completely obscured in aerial photos but clear as day in the vegetation-removing lidar. Weighing my options, I eventually decided to go for an overnight hike in via the Asbestos Cottage trailhead along Cobb Reservior Rd. A pleasant wide track carried me up high above the Takaka River. I soon reached the asbestos mining area with its green ultramafic rocks, stunted vegetation, and assorted mining relicts. Soon after I reached Asbestos Cottage which was largely as I had remembered it. The cottage was built in 1897 by miners and later this remote hut was lived in by reclusive couple for 40 years in a real-life story fit for a Hollywood period piece drama. I had stayed a night here once well over a decade. This time I stopped for a snack before continuing on to new terrain.

Past the cottage I got some good views across the serpentine to some of the flat limestone tablelands on the horizon and the surprisingly colorful beech forest on the opposing hillsides. The track then descended steeply to the Takaka River where I crossed the bridge over a deep pool and began my ascent up to the limestone. 

Most on the way up the hill I veered off the track to follow a curious creek upward. The creek emerged at a small resurgence, which I pushed a little ways before deciding it was wetter and smaller than I had my sights set on this trip. Nearby I sniffed out a much more promising resurgence entrance, this one with comfortable walking passage heading into the hillside and a bizarrely unique umbrella shaped pillar on bedrock at its entrance. Just in the entrance I spotted a hanging piece of flagging and further in some bones placed on ledges and so clearly this cave was known. I followed the cave in as far as a prominent skylight entrance, and then searching around the karst above the cave I was able to find the entrance from above, and thus to sketch in the approximate position of the cave without surveying it.

I continued on exploring the karst in this first region, notably enjoying the remarkably open bush and interesting rillen-karren bedrock outcrops, but finding few other promising karst features. It was becoming clear the limestone here was quite thin overall with few entrances into its single layer of cave development, largely at the contact between the limestone and underlying schist. I crossed the track and explored along the exposed edge of the limestone finding a few small features. Late in the day I reached the first of several prominent sinking streams. Here a stream submerged into a towering entrance at the most promising cave yet. I put on my helmet, packed my spare headlamps, and headed down the stream. Like all others I would find this stream was right on the contact with the underlying schist and the limestone above. Eventually I got to a deep pool and stripped down to my boxers to wade across and continue exploration. A side stream joined with at least another 100m of passage but continuing down the main stream I soon got to two very well decorated formation rooms above the stream level. I awkwardly scooted further down the low pancake shaped passage to another wet constriction where I turned around. In all I probably explored about 350m of cave passage in what I suspect to be a larger system, convincingly virgin. With the wet parts and complexity of side passages I decided this would probably be too much of a survey project to take on myself and decided to prioritize more exploration. Under light drizzle I settled for a nice flat camping spot between the entrance and a dark mysterious eel pond on the creek, excited to explore a few more stream sinks the following day.

In the morning I packed up and continued my way along the edge of the limestone. I found several more stream sink caves, each another 100-200m in length and seemingly unexplored. I suspect they all must ultimately drain into the main part of Moonsilver Cave. A few of these passages had some quite nice formations including weird bent stalactites and some nice cave bacon. I saw plenty of cave wetas as well.

After a half-day of exploring my time was running out. I was kind of dreading the circuitous 16km/10mi trail back to my car with its ups and downs and so decided to attempt a direct route back that the lidar seemed to think was a reasonable idea. This would involve 0.8 mile hiking the mixed manuka forest to the edge of the plateau (worse travel than the limestone's beech forest), then a 0.5 mile long/500 m vertical descent down a steep ridge to the Takaka River, then a steep 100 m climb up to the benched trail, only 3km length total. Happily this was a good idea and though rough and sweaty at times, I was back to the car in under 2 hours. After releasing my emergency call-out and grabbing a tasty bite to eat in Takaka, I drove the long winding road around Whanganui Inlet (low tide) on to Paturau. I had only ever visited this coast before on one of three Easter caver family weekends, so I should have expected the nostalgia and mood to be quite different. Despite finding about 1.5 km of new cave in the last 24hrs I felt pretty alone driving out to this isolated roadend and contemplated seeing if I could get my ticket changed to return home earlier. Against this backdrop of mixed feelings the sunset was top notch and I found a good enough spot to sleep in my car near the Anatori River.

Sunset on the Paturau coast