 |
| View of Cleft cave from afar |
 |
| Justin and Erica, the young couple that joined me on this ACC club outing: on the approach to the cave entrance |
 |
| Just inside the cave entrance |
 |
| The view out the first lookout window after spelunking through rightmost passage (didn't realize there were two windows and initially thought this was the 'lofty lookout'). |
 |
| At first window |
 |
One of the main attractions of Cleft cave is 'lofty lookout', a window through the side of the mountain on the far side of the cave (overlooks a fantastic cliff). We backtracked to the main passageway and crawled through a few wet puddles along the way to get back 'on route' to lofty!
|
 |
| At second window, 'lofty lookout' after backtracking to main route |
 |
| At lofty lookout |
To complete the loop we had to do a bit of routefinding and we explored a dead-end that was inhabited by a few pack rats (we initially noticed a musty smell then saw a million droppings, then we actually spotted a few of the varmints). The rats looked a bit like gigantic pikas and were kind of freaky. Erica lead us through a very, very tight squeeze and we completed the loop and passed through the ice caverns on the way back.
 |
| Justin spelunking through the ice cavern |
 |
| Ice crystals on walls |
 |
| Ice stalagtites growing on slippery floor! |
 |
| The stream crossings seemed to go faster on the way back |
No comments:
Post a Comment