Trip Report: Guadalupe Mountains

The Guads are one of the best caving areas in the world. In addition to Carlsbad Caverns there are thousands of other caves, the most impressive of which is Lechugilla Cave. The mountains are very rugged and travel off of paved roads in treacherous. The dirt access roads range from bad to worse. The better parts of the roads are sometimes traversable by intrepid cavers in a Subaru, but most of the time you will want a four wheel drive. For this trip we had the green jeep (later seen in the 2016 Malpais Mudpits trip), a truck, and another jeep drive by a caver that wanted to learn something about 4WD (he did).

Hiking in The Guads is also difficult unless you have a good trail like that up Guadalupe Peak. As there is no trail to Pink Dragon Cave we got in some painful hiking through yucca, agave, and cactus.

On Saturday I took the vertical trained cavers to Hidden Cave. The entry is a short vertical drop, maybe 70ft. It is an ideal first cave for novice vertical cavers. Here we are looking up at the entry from the inside.

Hidden Cave has a number of nice formations.

You do not want this formation to fall on your head. I am guessing that it is at least 10ft long and 18in wide.

The bright blur is the camera flash reflecting off of a dust mote near the camera lens.

Candace is climbing up and over an obstacle. Yes, the trail in the cave does actually go up and over here - she is not off trail.

This formation stood out as being pristine despite the surrounding mod. Remember, stalactites stick tight to the ceiling and stalagmites might have stuck tight but they didn't, and stalactites that don't stick tight fall on your head.

Just another formation in Hidden Cave (with a caver hidden behind it).

Having explored the cave we are now climbing out. For novice vertical cavers it is a slow process, and it is important to have somebody double check everything before you start up the rope. Everything is going smoothly and Candace is making good progress out of the cave

Maybe Joe is not happy about leaving the cave?

He seems happy enough now.

For those of you not familiar with vertical caving, he had two ascenders locked on to the rope keeping him safe when this picture was taken.

Another caver demonstrates a more calm and rational approach to ascending.

Everybody safely exited Hidden Cave and returned to camp to meet the cavers that visited Carlsbad.

The next day I took the other group of (non-vertical) cavers to Pink Dragon cave while the first group went to Carlsbad. The hike to Pink Dragon was the usual hike over sharp rocks while trying to avoid sharp bushes and going around sharp cacti. After making the usual blood donation to the yucca we made it safely to the cave. At least one caver is surprised that survived the onslaught of the yucca.

Descending a slick flow stone ramp. This is a tricky spot in the cave and most be done carefully

The namesake for Pink Dragon Cave. A better picture taking at a better angle might show how it kind of looks like a dragon. But I tend to see it as just a cool cave formation.