Exploring Virgin Cave in Ricks Springs Utah

[IowaCaveDiver]

Alright, you have my 100% attention.... did you dive saturday or what? I'm on the edge of my seat here. I'd never have thought growing up and starting my diving in Iowa that I would someday live in cave country and wish I could be diving somewhere else. Your two dives thus far are incredibly exciting to read about, not just that you are exploring virgin cave in such a remote/non-cave laden part of the country, but to hear about the terrific vizibility and that it turned into a multi room sump dive thus far... the images I have remind me of something from the movie the goonies... I 1/2 expect you guys to pop up into another room and find a pirate ship full of treasure. In all seriousness, great job on the dives and discoveries and for gods sake, keep us posted!

-Matt

P.S. i'm always curious to learn about how people, much like myself, from areas of the country that don't have cave diving ever got involved in it... I signed up for a cavern course in high school not even knowning what a cavern was... here I am 10 years later and I can't get enough.

[Randy Thornton]

Alright, you have my 100% attention.... did you dive saturday or what? I'm on the edge of my seat here. I'd never have thought growing up and starting my diving in Iowa that I would someday live in cave country and wish I could be diving somewhere else. Your two dives thus far are incredibly exciting to read about, not just that you are exploring virgin cave in such a remote/non-cave laden part of the country, but to hear about the terrific vizibility and that it turned into a multi room sump dive thus far... the images I have remind me of something from the movie the goonies... I 1/2 expect you guys to pop up into another room and find a pirate ship full of treasure. In all seriousness, great job on the dives and discoveries and for gods sake, keep us posted!

-Matt

P.S. i'm always curious to learn about how people, much like myself, from areas of the country that don't have cave diving ever got involved in it... I signed up for a cavern course in high school not even knowning what a cavern was... here I am 10 years later and I can't get enough.

OK, so here is the next installment!

Josh Thornton, myself (Randy Thornton), Richard Lamb, Tom Lamb and Amy Smith dove Ricks Spring on Saturday with the intent of shooting some photos of as much of the explored sections as possible. When we got there the entrance appeared to be quite a bit smaller due to a substantial amount of rock that had slid down closing off a portion of the entrance. It has always been a side mount entrance, but Saturday it was suitable for skinny guys only! This basically meant that Josh was the only one who could initially get in! Once Josh was inside, he was able to scoop some of the new rocks out of the way which allowed Richard to barely squeeze through! The next 40 mins or so was spent with both teams (inside and outside) clearing the entrance so that we could all make it through the entrance. This also meant because the water is 40 degrees cold, we were already quite cold before the dive really got under way!

My camera set up is a Canon 1DS which is quite large. It's housed in a Subal housing with two large Sea & Sea strobes on long arms. With a large dome port to accommodate the wide angle lens, we were all quite concerned about damaging it in the restrictions in a couple of different places. Consequently, we decided to put it in a milk crate to transport it to at least the first dry section. This turned out to be a very bad idea! I was to be the lead diver carrying the milk crate/camera so that I could be ensured of good visibility, but between the cold, flow, and trying to swim carrying a heavy milk crate, it was just about enough to do me in! About 35 mins. into the dive we were in a fairly tight tunnel called the "Slippery Slide" that only has room for one diver when I suffered a major free flow! (I'm assuming due to the cold!) Carrying stages, camera, in a tight tunnel with a free flow made for some hair raising moments, and by the time the team was able to turn around in tight quarters with all of our gear and high tail it back towards the entrance, I had experienced about as much fun as I wanted for one day! Fortunately, my son Josh offered to carry the camera back out! (OK, I shoved it in his face and said: "Here you take this sucker!") Turning around in the Slippery Slide caused a silt out and we excited in next to zero viz. We ended up loosing two additional strobes that we were going to use in slave mode to light up the place. They were worth about a $1000 so we were pretty bummed about that, but better strobes than a diver! Hopefully we will find the strobes on another dive sometime.

I'm sure Josh will come along and offer some more details. I will only say this: Diving in cold water caves is another whole level of stress that is hard to explain. Heavy gloves, hoods, thick under garments, etc. etc. just complicates virtually every aspect of the dive. We are seeing incredible sights, but it is WAY hard work!

Part of the team is heading back up on Friday for another push. I won't be able to join them this Friday, but I'm sure one of them will log on and update everyone. We don't believe we are close to hitting the end. This is exciting stuff. Josh and Richard are convinced that we can haul a ladder somehow in to the 2nd dry section and climb up the 20 foot waterfall and explore that section, but I am not convinced it's possible. We'll see how that goes! We now know that there are at least two sources of water, one of which is coming down the water fall.

That's it for now. Stay tuned!

Regards,
Randy

[CCR Josh]

Wow, Josh! What a great write up! My breath was caught in my throat at your description of the new dry section! WOW! Congratulations!!

Thanks! It is quite an experience!

Hopefully within the next couple weeks we can get a decent photo of the waterfall. We are still waiting for Matt to come up with a good name for it.

[CCR Josh]

P.S. i'm always curious to learn about how people, much like myself, from areas of the country that don't have cave diving ever got involved in it... I signed up for a cavern course in high school not even knowning what a cavern was... here I am 10 years later and I can't get enough.

Well my father, younger brother and myself were instantly addicted to diving. Even from the beginning we were obsessed with "exploring" tight spaces. We found every swim through and "Bahama Mamma" wreck we could.

I was always interested in cave diving, but I have to admit it wasn't until I read the book "The Cave Divers" that I became slightly obsessed. We took our zero to hero cave course in 2004 with Joe Odom. If I had to pick a favorite type of diving I would definitley say cave diving.

[Webmaster]

Good stuff. I assume you've ridgewalked above there in the recharge area?

You might try putting the camera setup in a slightly oversize bag so it's easy to get in and out. Something slick without a lot of pieces to catch on everything. You could also put some foam in it so that it comes out about neutral which will make it much easier to maneuver. A dry bag would probably do it, just flood it and go.

[IowaCaveDiver]

What are the open water conditions like? perhaps you could recruit some local open water divers that would be interested in clearing your opening prior to your dives... seems like you'd be frozen and tired before the dive even starts... as long as they don't have to go into a major cavern, I'll bet a lot of open water cold water divers would love the chance to help you guys out.

[jkdiver]

Guys, Great read. look forward to reading more.

[UTCaver]

What are the open water conditions like? perhaps you could recruit some local open water divers that would be interested in clearing your opening prior to your dives... seems like you'd be frozen and tired before the dive even starts... as long as they don't have to go into a major cavern, I'll bet a lot of open water cold water divers would love the chance to help you guys out.

The open water area is pretty small. I attached some pictures. From the pictures you can see that the head pool is about 20-25 ft across but where the actual cave opening is only maybe 8 ft across and there is not really room for more than 1 diver to be in position removing rocks. It would be great if we could get volunteers to help remove rocks. We do usually take shifts to help remove rocks. The most efficient way that we have found is to have someone enter the cave with a bucket and a small shovel and scoop rocks in through the entrance and into the bucket and then either dump them in an out of the way area inside the cavern or to have somebody pull the bucket back out. The biggest problem is that even when we clear the rocks more always seem to slide down from the open water pool.

[FW]

There is a cave in AL that used to be like that. The entire entrance was nothing more than a gravel slope. We had to dig our way in, and then dig our way out at the end of the dive.

I used to back my 4X4 up th the entrance and string a rope down to a 5 gallon bucket. We would then drag the rocks up the slope, and dump them away from the entrance, into the dry creek that the cave fed.

All of this was about 20 years ago. We lost access then, and only got back in a couple years ago.

Now, there is not one loose pebble anywhere near the entrance. The only thing I can figure is that there was a flood so big, that it washed all the gravel out into the creek.

If you are lucky, a big flood will come along and wash out the loose rocks. The only problem then, will be replacing all the line

[Randy Thornton]

Halleluiah!

Thanks to Richard Lamb who found my two lost camera strobes that were lost while trying to take pictures in Ricks Spring a week ago Friday! I had been complaining all week about having lost a $1000 worth of strobes and was very happy when I got the phone call this weekend!

Thanks Richard!

Regards,
Randy

By the way, here is a picture of the ill-fated camera transport system! If you haven't tried it, don't! It was a disaster!