Its been a while since our last blog post so here we go.
Scott Christenson, chairman of the Sandia Grotto graciously led a grotto trip to the Chiricahua Crystal Cave. Thank you Scott! Not only did he lead the trip but he picked up the key making he and Sam's drive 8 hours.
I'll keep it short. It was fun and hard! We were all very sore after 8 hours in the cave. It was Type 2 fun. The kind of fun that gets better when your done. We hurt. It was a sporty cave with many chances of falling to your death if you screwed up but they were easy rock climbs/stemming. We went to the bottom, Scott opened the second gate, an amazing feat to get through with one bar remaining. Only Katrina could have joined him if he did not remove the second bar. We made it to the Pelican room in about 3 hours.
Katrina and I met Scott C, Sam, Michelle, and Scott O at http://www.rodeocottages.com/ in Rodeo, NM 6 hours from here. We got up at 7:30AM and leisurely got ready for the day. We drove into the stunning mountains a 1/2 an hour away and parked. A short hike up to the cave gate was scenic.
No vertical gear needed but hand lines in a few places would be nice. If your a decent rock climber this is no problem. There was not much belly crawling but there was a lot of squeezing at funny angles. Rout finding was tricky but Scott did an amazing job!
The cave was different because it was like being in a geode. There were Quarts crystals all over the calcite walls. Something we never saw in PR.
We could have gone back Saturday morning but we were so sore that no body did! Instead we drove home taking a detour through Silver City and the Gila forest.
Below are a bunch of pictures.
