Entry #2: Off the Beaten Path

Today I want to talk about an activity that not many people know exists, caving. Caving is an activity where people go out explore, survey and conserve the wonderful caves to be found around them. This is a hobby that I have recently gotten into and it has already taken me on some wild adventures,

The first time I seriously went caving was with a friend named Azure to Peppersauce Cave, located about an hour outside of Tucson. After departing from Tucson we took a tiny two lane highway through the small town of Oracle and into the mountains. Before reaching the cave you drive through a small campsite tucked away into a small valley and hidden by trees known as Peppersauce Campground. To find the cave entrance you have to already know where you are looking, there is a small pull off on one of the nearby roads that serves as a parking lot for those visiting the cave. Crossing the road from the parking lot you descend into a valley via a trail not visible from the road. A short walk along this trail and you come to a sign mapping out the cave and giving a little history of it. The map details two entrances to the cave, one forward and to the right the other off to the left. We chose to explore the entrance toward the right. This "entrance" was a crack in the cliff face at an approximate 135 degree angle from the ground. The outside was spray painted with warning label of danger along with some skull and cross bones. Figuring this to be a prank done by some bored teenagers and no real danger was to be had, we turned on our flashlights and entered the crevice.

                                          Picture Courtesy of: experience-az.com

We slid along the rocky surface for about 30 minutes, never able to really stand, more laying on the angled rock. The crevice was only about a foot and a half wide and narrowed at points to where I had to align my body so that my neck was going through pinch points, rock scraping at either side of it. Finally after 30 minutes there was a small round opening at the bottom of the crevice, what we assumed was the opening into the main cave. As I peered into the opening I saw a small chamber, barely big enough for a small teenage girl to curl up into the fetal position in that was completely encapsulate, there was no bigger cave that this crevice led to. As it turns out this entrance was no longer usable to get to the main cave, we had gone the wrong way.

Another 30 minute trek back out of the crevice and we stumbled upon a kind group of older men who pointed out to us where the real entrance was. You had to follow the trail further and then turn to look up at the cliff wall. There was a section where several roots stood out of the wall forming a ladder like structure sturdy enough to be climbed on. Climbing those roots we came to a small ledge and the actual entrance to the cave.

The entrance, just a tiny hole in the cliff face led to a small chamber with another, even tinier hole in the wall. Once inside this first chamber you could see graffiti everywhere, mostly people writing their name. The cave is mostly made of clay, meaning that even crawling through that first hole we began to get covered in the stuff, there was no way of exploring this cave with getting utterly filthy. On we went under this second hole into a large room, pitch black except for our head lights. In this room there were several holes, looking almost like slides that lead off beyond where our flashlights could see. We opted to be safe and stay well away from these, not knowing what lurked at the bottom of the wild ride down the slide.

The cave is about a half mile deep with several rooms linked together all similar to the one we first entered. At the back of the cave is where the real experience is, a large underground lake. To get to the lake you start at an overhang with a ladder attached to it. Climbing down the ladder you come to a slick clay landing that slopes steeply away on either side. Carefully making out way off the landing there the floor slopes all the way down to the lake, slippery all the way. From there on we crept along the path making sure to keep at least 3 points of contact with the ground, making sure we didn't slip down into the lakes murky waters.

After the visiting the lake we began to head back, retracing our steps through the cave. The graffiti on the walls became incredibly helpful here as there were numerous arrows pointing to the exit. The exit itself is nearly impossible to find without these arrows, being a one and a half square foot hole at the bottom of the wall, cloaked completely in darkness. 

Climbing out of the darkness and into the light we found that we were as expected covered in mud. Luckily we had planned ahead and brought a change of clothes with us so that we didn't have to endure the filth throughout the car ride home. 

This experience opened me to the world of caving. I sought out a local group that does this as a hobby and gives people access to more advanced and dangerous caves, and will be attending one of their meetings shortly. There is no other feeling in the world like feeling rock on all sides of you, going into the depths of the earth to see what is hidden their.