[Image]  A couple weekends ago I joined some friends to venture into a couple caves to see if they'd be appropriate to use for an upcoming Small Party Cave Rescue Class. We met up at a primitive campsite, which made a beautiful relaxing spot.

The next morning we hiked to the cave, where this beautiful hole beckoned.
[Image]
We put two ropes into the pit so we could rappel and ascend the 180+ feet in pairs.
[Image]
Here's Bill on a slopey part of the rappel.
[Image]
Once we got to the bottom, the room opened up and sported some large formations.
[Image]
Here's a closer view of some of the larger stalagmites.
[Image]
Chris took a closer look at an insect we found.
[Image]
In one small side passage we saw a small shield, about five inches across.
[Image]
It didn't take long to check out the cave, so then it was time to start heading back up.
[Image]
Here's the view for the last part of the climb. It's great going into caves, but it's also wonderful to emerge to the sunlight.
[Image]
On the way back down, Tom found a nice gopher snake.
[Image]
We wanted to see one more cave that day, so we gathered our cave gear and rope and trudged up a hill.
[Image]
This cave had a short drop onto a slope.
[Image]
Numerous formations were stained with packrat excrement.
[Image]
Over on the side we rigged two ropes for the 145 drop to the lower section of the cave.
[Image]
Watching others go down, down, into the underground. (There's a catchy caving song that starts out with that line.)
[Image]
At the bottom we checked out neat bones, formations, signatures from the 1920s, and even a little lead (that pinched out).
[Image]
Once again it was time to climb out.
[Image]
Seeing different caves always reminds me of the wonderful diversity of our planet.