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Exploring Virgin Cave in Ricks Springs Utah
I'm sure for many of you that live full time in cave country or other areas around the world where there are numerous underwater caves found, exploring a virgin cave is not a once in a life time event! For a small group of tight knit Utah cave divers, Ricks Spring is a dream come true. You may recall reading an article in the CDS magazine last year concerning the ongoing exploration of Ricks Springs in Logan Canyon, Utah. Of course compared to Wakulla or other major exploration projects, Ricks is of little consequence in the overall scheme of things, but having a diveable cave within a couple of hours of home is absolutely fantastic!
We have been pushing this cave over the past 3 years. Originally dived by Wendell Nope and Richard Lamb, the Ricks exploration team now consist of 9 people: Wendell Nope, Richard Lamb, Tom Lamb, Matt Mimnaugh, Tibby Petrescue, Mike Robinson, Joshua Thornton, Michael Thornton, & Randy Thornton.
As a high flow, high altitude fresh water spring, diving Ricks is a challenge in many ways. It is only divable during certain months of the year due to excessive flow! When I say flow, I mean during spring run-off times, you can't even make it in the entrance let alone make any headway in the cave! Probably the biggest challenge is the water temperature. 40 degrees is cold by anyone's standards, and cave diving in this environment certainly appeals to only the most vigorous divers! Dry suits, thick hoods and gloves make virtually every aspect of laying line in virgin passageway a challenge. Additionally, smoothed scolloped surfaces with few legitimate tie off points make for line laying challenges.
About 1500 feet into the cave, you hit a dry section which then requires climbing up a waterfall section and portage through about 300 additional feet of dry/wet limestone area to the next section of going underwater cave. As of yesterday, with the teams assistance, Josh and Michael Thornton added about 300 feet of additional passage making explored passage past the dry section about 700-750 feet, for a total of approximately 2200 feet of cave explored. (rough estimate, as at some point we will go back an do a legitimate measurement!) According to Josh and Michael, the new unexplored passage became extremely silty as the percolation dislodged silt resting in the scolloped cups on the sides of the cave and viz when from 100 feet to 2 inches!
Run times for exploring the end of lines at this point are running in the 2 to 2 1/2 hour range, so you can imagine how cold the divers are when exiting the cave in these temperatures! The divers usually require help removing their equipment and getting out of the water at that stage because they are so wiped out!
The cave is definitely sidemount access. There are some very large passages, but also some restrictions that just wouldn't allow for backmount access. Yesterday, in order to continue past the dry section, the push team staged cylinders at the dry section so that they could use just their primary LP 85s in the new section without having to worry about extra stages in the large crack that is currently being explored.
Last year the CDS donated some gold line to be installed. Less than a year later, parts of the gold line already need to be repaired, and we hope to work on that project in the next few weeks as well as improve the routing in a few places. Past the dry section there is only exploration line in place for now, but the team is hoping to install more gold line later this fall. Hopefully, if I can figure out how to get my housing through the cave safely, I'll post some pictures of the inside later this fall.
Regards,
Randy
Ricks Exploration Update:
Tuesday Sept 22nd-
Josh Thornton, Matt Mimnaugh and Amy Smith ran up to Ricks for a quick dive. Amy ended up volunteering to clear rocks from the entrance for an hour (MANY THANKS!) while Matt and Josh went on what was to be a leisurely dive. The dive was full of the usual excitement in being in a barely known cave, and the awe of the 100+ ft of viz.
Getting to the first dry section (1300 ft.), Matt and I still had plenty of gas and decided to climb Wayne’s Waterfall and haul our cylinders to the Moon Pool (1600 ft) and see if we couldn’t make it to the end of the line. We picked up the reel that Michael and I left a few weeks ago and started looking.
Matt swam with the reel in the direction I thought was the way to go, only to hit a dead end. At that moment we both looked up and saw air above us. I think it is safe to say that we both thought this was most likely another small air space as seen in previous areas of the cave. Seconds later I notice water running into the space right above us. At that moment I new this had to be another dry section similar to the first, which was about 750 feet behind us (rough estimate). I signaled Matt and we headed towards it.
As we popped our heads up, I can’t explain the feeling that rushes through not only your mind, but also your whole body as one lays their eyes on such a beautiful cave, a cave that no one had ever seen before. Not missing a beat Matt and I ripped off our fins and started up the rocks.
I came around the corner to find Matt awestruck looking up and to the left. “Now THAT’S a waterfall!” he said, as I looked up. That moment might very well qualify as the most exciting moment in my diving life. A stunning 20 ft over hung waterfall spilled into a 10 ft pool of crystal clear water. We were like two boys in a candy shop!
After exploring the second dry section we now have 2 different ways to go. The first would be up the waterfall- we shinned our lights up into a large room where the water enters the dry section. The second will be another source of water with an entrance similar to the original entrance to Ricks. We “poked our heads” back about 50 ft into this passageway, and it looks promising.
Although we only added another 30-50 ft of line from where Michael and I explored last time, this dive was a huge success. Of course Michael was excited to hear about it, but a little upset that we barely missed it last time. The visibility was a decent 10-15 ft on the way out, which we can’t complain about. Without any survey work done past the first dry section Matt and I estimate that total penetration, including the second dry section is around 2500 ft.
And no worries, we aren’t slowing down. We are planning on another expedition this Saturday. This will be our first try at taking a full camera setup (housing, arms & strobes) in and past the dry section. Any tips or pointer would be appreciated! We hope to get some decent photos of the “real waterfall” in Ricks.
Stay tuned……
10 Oct trip to Ricks Spring
Yesterday Wendell Nope, Thomas Lamb & I were up diving Ricks Spring. Our objectives were to get some good HD video from the entrance to the first dry space, then get pictures and video of the fossils, the Moon Pool and the passages for as far as the video card would last. After that, explore that back sections that Matt and Josh have recently discovered.
As with most trips this one was not without its challenges, first Tom’s computer died, fortunately we had a back up, then I dropped one of Wendell’s tanks and broke a regulator, <ouch>, luckily we had a backup for that too, more than once we’ve been to the cave only to have to turn around and drive home because of gear issues. We’ve learned to bring backups of about everything. When we finally got in the water I went into the cave first and set the primary reel, then Tom passed the stage bottles through the restriction to me and then Wendell passed the camera through and I videoed both Wendell and Tom coming into the cave. We each clipped on a stage bottle and Wendell took the camera and started taking video from the entrance to the first dry space.
While we were in the Slippery Slide Tunnel, a long narrow tunnel, I had to stretch to fix something on Wendell, I can’t remember just what the problem was, but as I did I had to really extend my neck and in the process the bottom of my neck seal released and allowed a flood of 42oF water to run down my neck and chest. I’d like to think my neck seal is too loose because my diet and exercise program is working but I really think it is because the seal has stretched. A couple more times during the dive I felt it leak again, just not as bad as the first time.
We had hoped to get video and pictures of the fossils, passageway and the Moon Pool, however the video card filled just as we entered the dry space. At least now we have HD video up to that point. Wendell is editing it now and as soon as it’s ready I’m sure it will be on his website and we can post a link to it.
We took our tanks off and took a short rest then hiked around the dry section for a few minutes. After catching our breath and warming up a bit we went back and started hauling the tanks up Wayne’s Waterfall and through the first dry section. We had made it up with 5 out of the 6 tanks and while working on the last one Tom tore a hole in his drysuit. At that point we called the dive, it was a bummer to do work that hard getting the tanks up the waterfall and not get to dive the back section. The other and more pressing challenge was that we still had to exit through 1300 ft of 42oF water with a hole in Tom’s drysuit, needless to say Tom & I were both very wet and very cold when we finally made it out.
Richard
Ricks Spring diving season
As Randy has mentioned there are times when it is not possible to dive the cave, most years we physically can't get in from mid April until about the first of August. Two years ago we made it in as early as the 7th of July, but even then the flow was high enough to make the dive more work than fun. Usually from about the first of August until early to mid December the flow has eased enough to make the diving really enjoyable, enough to clear any silt dislodged by the bubbles but not so much to make it a lot of work to get in. Usually by mid December the flow has stopped and the water level at the spring head has dropped about 6 ft. Without flow any silt hangs around quite a while and with the water level dropping the entrance and exit becomes more difficult. The spring head is surrounded by loose rock and climbing down that causes a lot of rocks to fall and plug the entrance. The other thing the drop in water level prevents access to the back half of the cave, unless you don't mind crawling through limestone tunnels with dive gear. There is a lot of passage that is out of water but too small to stand in. So From mid December to about the first of March it's a little hard to get excited about diving this cave. Starting about the first of March the flow returns and there is a 6 week window when the cave is diveable again. All that is dependent on the water year we're having, on really good years they tell me the spring flows year round and on really dry years I hear the level will drop to the point that the entrance is dry, <12 ft>. That's probably more info than you wanted, but the bottom line is that right now is the ideal time to dive the cave.
And now for the rest of the story...
What Rusty failed to mention was that he only got to do one dive in the cave before he was roped into help surveying the cave. Also Rusty has firmly established himself in the history of this cave by becoming the first diver to rack up a deco obligation in this cave, not an easy task considering that the average depth is 26 ft and the water temp is 42 degrees. When we were surveying we spent a lot of time between 50 and 60 ft and the cave elevation is right at 6000 ft, our run time was 78 minutes... If that wasn't enough he'll also go down in history as the first and probably the only diver to dive trimix in Ricks Spring... the deepest point we've found so far is 70 ft...
Rusty, thanks again for your help with our survey, it was a pleasure to get to do a couple of dives together.
Richard
