Quote from Isaac Lass on July 24, 2024, 4:03 pm

Hi all. This was a bit of a one-off ridgewalking day that I did a couple weeks ago (July 5). I got a lead from a bat biologist friend (Julia) who was trying to track a bat on the opposite side of the canyon from tongue river cave. They evidently spent quite a while chasing this signal around this bowl and then realized that the signal was coming from a potential cave opening across the canyon (on the Tongue River Cave side) and then bouncing around the bowl they were in. 

The hike to the lead wasn't too bad. I mostly followed the base of the limestone cliffs and checked any holes I came across. I didn't keep super close track of time but it took about an hour and a half from the TRC cave parking lot, with most of that time spent off trail. When I got there unfortunately the potential entrance from the bat biologist was up an overhung 15/20' cliff. I did try getting in from the top and it was way too exposed with no obvious way down into the cave. Unfortunately had to be left unchecked for the time being and is going to require vertical gear to get into it. 

However, there were plenty of other holes to check in the near proximity and they ended up way cooler than I expected. The first hole I checked I almost didn't bother going down into because I could see the end of the cave and couldn't feel any airflow. I crawled in anyways and to my surprise the entire ceiling in was completely covered in dogtooth spar. The next cave I checked was much more significant. It had a walk-in entrance and over 100' of passage (with some small, not too promising leads). It too was covered with dogtooth spar including a pretty cool chandelier feature at the back of the cave that was the size of my head. The third cave I checked also was approximately 100' long. Once again it was abundant in dogtooth spar. The noteworthy feature in this one was sitting up into a 5' tall by 3' diameter geode. 

Anyways, it was easily the best day of ridge walking I've had. The area definitely needs revisited to survey the two more significant caves and to haul some vertical gear to try out that other potential entrance (who knows, maybe it'll connect with the TRC system).