I got to check out another cave I found, a bit over 8K, it will soon be snowbound, the peak in the back is 12K+ It looked pretty good for landing from a distance, but as usual closer inspection showed it would take some careful routing to find a stretch good enough and long enough, after 15 minutes of flyovers I found the proper runway heading and set her down. The cave at the entrance was only the teaser, a bigger chamber (maybe 10' wide and 5' high, big enough to camp in?!) opened up after a tight crawl through a long tunnel, I opted out on this. I had a GI entrenching shovel in the plane of course and could have gotten the loose scree out but rationalized the plane was too far away (300' but uphill) I had new Levis on and might get them dirty, and several other excuses not to do it. That and it looked pretty creepy back in there. However,it was a nice enough view across the valley from the cave entrance. The view up hill wasn't either. Having scratched the itch of having a little adventure and landing a new site, I called it good and headed home. But about 3 miles down the ridgeline, while flying up a little canyon, I spotted this other site! This looks real interesting, and a few hundred yards on the same cliff line there seemed to be several more, these two being the most intriguing, next time!

Wow, that is waaay cool. Lookin' forward to more pix. Take me inside that big round one!

At first I thought I flew past the same peak yesterday but I think I was wrong. Very cool adventure.

Here is the peak I flew past:


Spotted these guys on a ridge just north of the peak.

I made it back to the caves that I had spotted on the above posting of a few weeks ago..... and since the sage brush was kneeish high, there was heavy ( heavy in consistancy) snow about 6" deep, and a few boulders (just enough to make me suspicious) I bagged the idea of landing right by the caves. The bench I landed below was only a few seconds flight away and offered no challenges or dangers, not having my winter survival gear setup (18 degrees the night before in the area) and just not feeling frisky enough that day also effected that decision.

After landing I started the hike back up the ridge, and it was amazing what a few seconds of flight time took to cover on foot, like an hour hike and about 1K altitude gain No snow down low. Good excercise for sure, and a good chance to eyeball the LZ I had decided to pass on. To my surprise, it looked BETTER then I thought from the air, it's almost always the opposite, I could have landed it in other words, but hell nothing wrong with being a little conservative every now and then. The bench landing tie down spot:
The double caves up close, I didn't even try and check the smaller one out, it looked like too much work. The lower one was about 40' dia. inside and looks perfect for riding out 12-21-12, a south exposure and a gently sloped floor, you could stay dry all winter. Only one small critter of some kind seemed to be holed up in it. No source of water but I guess melted snow will work. No pictures inside, the camera flash wasn't working, also no signs inside of any people ever being in there (butts or beer cans anyway). Another cave that from the ground very hard or not possible to see, so yet another cool thing about having an airplane that can land off airport.

That's pretty cool, Tom.

When I was about 15 a mate and I crawled into a cave about the same size, it was way up in the bush on a cliff above a river, it went in about 10 meters with a dirt base. Crawling along with a torch I could see where snakes had been sliding along, at times my shoulders touched the sides. At the very end I found some old bones so grabbed one and crawled backwards out. My mates mum was a school teacher and had connections at Sydney Uni, she thought the bone was human so sent it down to them, they carbon dated it to around 15,000 years old and thought it to be a radius bone from a forearm. When we got it back we took it to the cave and replaced it where we found it. Amazing what you can find in a hole in the ground.

The coward in me would be keeping a close eye out for bear scat. The kind with little bells in it that smells like chili pepper.

EB

Wow those are awesome finds. Thanks for posting.