Claystone Caving

[CaverMC]

I went out to Cactus Park today to do some caving. I wanted to go to an area that I had never searched before and it turned out to be worthwhile. On the way out there, I rounded a corner and saw some dust in the air so I pulled over and saw these guys:



I finally reached the area and started hiking. I came upon a sandstone outcropping that had a little bit of passage. Below that, I saw a small cave and even further down I could see this one:



You can see the stream pop out behind the opening so I didn’t check this one out. I kept hiking a little more and found a nice one. I entered the bottom entrance and started to make my way through the cave. I came to two skylights but the passage kept going.






This cave was probably around 500ft. I walked around some more but didn’t really find anything new so I went to another area that I had previously visited. I came to this cave:



I knew I had seen this one before but I didn’t remember going through it. As I looked down the entrance I noticed a snake on the wall.



I’m pretty sure this is a baby rattlesnake that doesn’t have buttons yet. He crawled up in a little hole and I let him be. I continued through a small passage that had a lot of debris and cobble on the walls.




A little further, I found some stalactites. No, not really. They’re roots. But they looked cool.




After this cave, I explored another one with high ceilings but it was only around 100ft long. I got in the truck and drove down the road a little ways.

Don’t you love when you don’t have to hike to the cave!



This cave travels under the road and pops out into a stream bed. I was surprised to find a small chunk of amethyst in the cave. It a really small chunk. Hard to see in the pic but the top 1/8 inch is amethyst.




Some pack rat tracks in mud:



Drift wood inside the cave:



It was around noon by this time and it was starting to get hot. It wasn’t too bad earlier because we had some clouds and a nice breeze.
These are winter time caves but they’re close to home and I had to get out. It was nice to get out but I’m glad to be back inside with the good ole air conditioning.

[ndonaldj]

Oh man! i hate snakes!! Looks like a good time though : ) very cool.

[jumar]

Thanks for the TR. Cool