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Knockin' on Heaven's Door Caving in New Mexico By Brian Williams Photos by Dan Straley, Tom Turner, Robert Brooks, Brian Williams What's more entertaining than a trip out west with a bunch of Florida cavers? That would be Tom Turner's tribute to the Guns and Roses rendition of "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Heaven's doe-wor, hay, hay, hay, hay." Don't miss it!!!! March has got to be one of the best months for caving in New Mexico and just being in the beautiful canyons of the Guadalupe Mountains. You really feel like you're knockin' on heavens door. Better known as the "Guads," temperature ranges from daytime highs in the upper 80's to nighttime lows in the 40's. Perfect weather for caving and camping. A diverse (motley) group of cavers headed out to New Mexico on the third week in March to visit some of the more spectacular caves in the region. There were 6 of us total including: Eric Amsbury, Robert Brooks, Chrissy Jett, Tom Turner, Brian Williams, and our fearless leader, Dan Straley. Dan has been out here several times in the past and so had Robert and Erik This was a virgin trip for Chrissy, Tom and me. Each time Dan and others come out here they always contribute to the HGRP (High Guads Restoration Project). This group of cavers comes from all over to maintain these beautiful caves. Most meet up at "Texas Camp" and then spread out through the area to survey, clean formations, do inventory and bat counts and maintain gates in any number of their famous caves. They are proud of these caves and rightly so. There is hardly any trash and very few broken formations. Part of this can be contributed to the remoteness of the locations but also to the dedication of the folks who participate in the HGRP. We were proud to make our contribution with a 15 hour trip into Cave of the Madonna for survey and trail flagging with Mike Huber of Carlsbad. The majority of caves we visited lie within the Guadalupe Mountain range either in Lincoln National Park, Guadalupe National Park, or on BLM land. Permits are required for visiting Park managed caves and some also require guides. Dan was able to arrange trips and pull permits for some of the bigger and better caves out there. For Ogle cave we were fortunate to be lead by Stan Allison. Hell Below Cave was guided by a wonderful and tough lady named Phyllis, and from the town of Carlsbad, Mike Huber guided our survey trip into Cave of the Madonna. The Guadalupe Escarpment is an impressive mountain range rising up from the desert floor and containing portions of the world's most extensive Permian limestone fossil reef. The southeastern terminus is the impressive El Capitan peak at 8078 ft. of elevation. This ancient reef is home to some of the most fantastic caves I have ever seen, with everything a little caver could want. There are big drops into enormous rooms, monstrous hallways with gargantuan columns, smaller passages covered in delicate gypsum flowers, and crystal pools of water bounded on the side by colorful flowstone, drapery and wild helectites in every shape and size. There are hundreds of caves to visit and every trip can be different. You may not recognize some of the names of the caves we visited, but even if you have never been out there, you at least know that the Guads are also home to the more famous caves of Lechiguilla and Carlsbad Caverns.
It's about 1500 miles from Florida to New Mexico and it makes for a long day of airplane snacks and layovers. But thanks to Dan Straley making all the travel arrangements, all we had to do was sit back and pray that all the gear made it to El Paso. Next stop was picking up a sacrificial, er, rental vehicle for the ride to Carlsbad and beyond. We loaded up our new best friend, a brand new Dodge Durango 4 x 4 that we would later christen "Guadrango". It was packed to the max and we still had to throw some of the gear on top. We hit the road for the 150 mile trip to Carlsbad. A quick stop to photograph El Capitan Peak and then it was on to Carlsbad and a caver favorite....Walmart. We loaded up on food and water and then back tracked to our first night of camping at Parks Ranch. At 11:00 pm we finally got the tent set up for the night and after a long day of traveling we debated a few seconds on going to bed then decided to grab our gear and go caving. There are 14 miles of gypsum caves at Park Ranch and the entrances are right by camp. I had heard about the fabulous caves of New Mexico and how we would be strolling through huge bore-hole most of the trip but Dan did not let us off that easily. Yep, the first entrance was a long tight belly crawl through a hot dusty tube. Dan got more than a little grief for that one. We did find some stoop walking passage in these caves and I'm sure the best part was just around the next corner. After an hour of scrambling through the gyp, we took a few pics and called it a night. Did you ever notice that the first one to go to sleep is the one that snores the loudest? Four hours later we were ready to pile out of the 5 man tent that had been crammed with 6 bodies on the hard New Mexico floor. Bagels with peanut butter for breakfast toasted on a campfire tasted great this morning but 5 days latter we hoped we wouldn't see another bagel for a while. We headed out to Slaughter Canyon to meet up with Stan Allison, our guide to Ogle Cave that day. The hike to Ogle was perhaps the worst part of the trip. Although the views were incredible and the desert was surprising us at every turn with a new variety of cactus, we were not quite acclimated to 5000 ft. and we still had another 1000 ft. of elevation to go. Stan set a blistering pace through the canyon and although I think I may have hacked up a piece of lung along the way, we all made it to the entrance....eventually. This was an open air entrance with 165 ft. drop and the rig point was an old steam wench that was used in the guano mining operation back in the early 1900's. Ogle Cave is typical of the huge borehole of the Guadalupe Mountains. The passage was over 100 ft. tall and twice as wide. The formations were enormous and difficult to photograph. Ogle cave holds the record for tallest column. At 110 ft. floor to ceiling the Bicentennial Column is truly amazing. Many other formations in this cave were outstanding as well as all the historic artifacts left over from the quano mining days. After 6 hours in cave, we climbed out, thanked Stan for a great trip then watched as he headed back down the canyon to the vehicles. We still had a little water left so of course we decided to hit another cave, a small one. About 500 yards lower in the same gulley as Ogle is the 40 ft. entrance drop top Helen Cave. This small cave was quite dusty but it did have a couple of rooms of nice formations. We only spent about an hour in here but we did get to see one of Jim Whites old cable ladders from the early days of exploration in this ridge. After we all climbed out of Helen Cave and took a few pics of the Crevice Spiny lizard that was scrambling around the lip, we took a water break and began to rethink our strategy of three other caves in the same day. Since it was going to be another 2 mile hike farther into the canyon and higher up the ridge to Lake Cave, we opted for the parking area and hit the trail. I was pleased with this decision as I was concerned about my water supply and did not want to become one of those stories you read about where the guy wanders in the desert delirious until he dies of thirst. We had a nice hike out and even managed to find a small Western Diamondback Rattlesnake to entertain us with a couple of quick photos before he slid off down into a crevice. The best part of this day might have been the swimming hole Stan told us we could find on the way back out of Slaughter Canyon. We found it. It was a nice little green body of water of undetermined depth out in the middle of the desert. What a great place to cool off and wash up after a hard day caving. When I say cool off, I mean really cool off. The water temp had to be in the low 50's. How could a place so hot have water so cold? I think we all took the quickest bath of our lives, but it was the pause that refreshes.
Next we headed into Carlsbad for more supplies then on up to Texas Camp. This would be our camp for the remainder of the trip and it's a beautiful spot on top of the ridge with fantastic views of the canyons all around, and of course, lots of caves within walking distance. The next morning we met our guide for "Hell Below". Phyllis was a tough little lady who was a pleasure to cave with. She lead us on another long hike through the scrub and down into the canyon to the entrance. Once inside the entrance room we had to rigged for a 160 ft. drop with two rebelays. Once everyone was all the way down we explored for a few more hours and took more photos of outstanding formations. One passage called the "Gyp Joint" was covered in a variety of different sized gypsum flower formations and we got some good photos here too. Next cave for the day was Cottonwood. This is the highest elevation cave in the Guads and has an enormous entrance and huge formations. The lower portion of this cave is also gated and we only had a permit for the big room so we spent a couple of hours on photos then headed back to camp and a delicious meal of spaghetti and bread. We sat around the fire until we wandered off to our tents to try and get a good night's sleep in preparation for a long trip on Saturday.
Saturday morning we rode down and picked up Mike Huber, our guide for "Cave of the Madonna". This was going to be an all day trip and we prepared accordingly with plenty of food and water. The drive alone took an hour as we had to keep getting out and stacking rocks around other rocks and slowly creeping the truck through some of the worst road I had ever seen. It would have made a great commercial for Dodge Durangos but I doubt the rental company would have been pleased to know where their truck had been. We finally reached the end of the ridge and began the long hike down to the cave. Hiking down this ridge and through the canyons we were rewarded with outstanding views all around us. The last part of the hike was a long scramble down the rocks and through the Lechigullia cactus to the entrance of the cave. This was basically down-climbing without a rope and I don't think anyone made it down without some scrapes and pokes somewhere from the cactus. Every bush out here has some kind of sharp edge or point and I think I found them all. Cave of the Madonna is an awesome place and is on the same ridge as Lechigullia. It has spectacular formations like I have never seen and multiple drops and big rooms. At the back of the entrance cavern is a breakdown pile with a gate across a small squeeze hole. You have to crawl through a maze of breakdown, passing packs and rope, to reach the 215 ft. drop down into the big room. We got the drop rigged and sent Chrissy down first. It seemed like quite a long time before we heard a tiny little voice echo up to the lip, "Off Rope." She sounded a million miles away. This huge room just swallows up light and sound. We all took our turn on this awesome drop and regrouped at the landing zone. Next it was off to the second rig point known as Dean's Drop. We rigged this 165 ft. crevice with Mike's rope and headed down to the lower reaches of the cave. This drop was down along a vertical fissure that was slick with formations in many places. It required 2 rebelays to reach the bottom but was well worth the effort. We began our survey duties at the bottom of this drop. Dan and I sketched profiles and plan views while Chrissy, Tom and Mike re-surveyed with a few new stations. Erik and Robert went further down to flag trails. After a few hours of hard work we packed up the survey gear and headed to the wine-cellar to check out some of the most incredible formations I have ever seen. A couple of hours and hundreds of photos later, we headed back to begin the long assent out of the cave. Erik, Tom and I went up first to spread the group out for the long climbs ahead. Once we reached the top of the 215 ft. drop we began removing all the gear back to the cavern area. I think Tom. Erik and I made at least 5 or 6 trips through the maze hauling gear out. Next step was the hike back to the car which proved to be quite challenging in the dark. The wind on the top of the ridge had increased to 45 miles per hour or more and nearly blew us off the trail. Another hour and we were back in camp for another great meal, this time it was chicken and pasta.
Sunday morning came too soon but we broke camp and loaded up once again. This was our last day of caving and we still had a permit for Sitting Bull Falls. This cave was small compared to the others but you did have to climb through a waterfall to get to the entrance. We took some photos of the crystal clear water passages and then headed back down to wash off in the pool below the falls. Next stop was a roadside cliff cave that we scrambled up in to take some more photos. Then we piled back into the truck and went to Carlsbad. No trip out here would be complete without at least a quick run through the tourist trail in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Tom, Chrissy and I took the elevator down to the Big Room and spent about an hour running through the cave. Dan, Erik and Robert had been here more than once so they left to find some new caves and then returned to pick us up later. Back on the road we headed into town and to the car wash where we spent a good deal of time getting the dirt, dust and scratches out of the rental truck. Thank goodness for Therma-silk hair conditioner. This really does a nice job filling in the surface scratches !! We drove 150 miles back to El Paso and crashed at a cheap motel for the night. The next day was another long day of traveling back to Florida and the real world of cell phones, email, and real jobs. I'll be back to the Guad's next year. For now, I'm still there in my mind.....knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's do-wor...hay, hay, hay, hay.
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