Sunset Crater does give an otherworldly appearance.  That can explain why in the 1960’s, NASA had astronauts practice for the first lunar landing in the cinder fields and lava flows around the crater.  The vent at the top of the volcano is 1000 feet above the surrounding landscape.   This giant hole made for an ideal training ground for NASA.

Sunset Crater is also the only eruption in the Southwest witnessed by the locals, as the Colorado Plateau’s most recent volcanic eruption.  Prior to western inhabitation, archeologists believed the Sinagua Indian culture lived in pithouses they dug in the area and farmed corn fields in the open meadows.  Research reveals burned pithouses filled with cinders and lava.

If you look closely you will see how life returns on the cinder field with small batches of wildflowers, desert shrubs, pine and aspen trees, as well as wildlife, in an arid volcanic landscape.

It was President Herbert Hoover whom established the national monument on May 26, 1930 to protect the unique geologic formations for all future generations to enjoy.  It is believed that nineteenth-century explorer John Wesley Powell named Sunset Crater as he marveled at the red and yellow rim colors.  Today the National Monument protects 3040 acres surrounded by Coconino National Forest and is the youngest, least-eroded cinder cone in the San Francisco Volcanic Field.  We invite you to join us on our trip to Sunset Crater National Monuments and an ice cave that is no longer open to the public.

Let’s go!
Lisa and Don DeLucia DeLuciaOutdoors

See this as a video on our You Tube channel here.

The next big challenge would be the 30 foot waterfall.  Bob used a rope walker ascent system and Lisa and I used a Texas system.  All went well.  We had eaten while we rested and that helped give us the energy.  Although Lisa and I would be switching over to a rope walker when we got back to the states.

As we exited the cave it was just getting light and the fog was so thick that we could not see a thing.  Without Bob’s sense of direction we would still be lost I am sure.  He led us right up the hill, past a not so friendly bull and straight to the dirt road we came in on.

When we got back to the hotel we helped each other take our wetsuits off.  As we were doing that in the patio the manager came up and said something to Lisa and walked off. He told Lisa it was 5 am and had gone off to light the water heater so we had hot showers. We told Bob we were going to shower and nap.  It was Wednesday morning and that meant market day to the locals and a feast for us!

After a hot shower Lisa and I napped for a while.  It had been a grueling trip out and we needed to re-charge a bit.  We woke up to a knock on our door.  It was Bob and Mark and they were smiling big!  They came in and said that the market was bustling so they came back to get us. We put on our boots and went with them.

I am sure that the market day in Cuetzala de Progresso Mexico now,  is not what it was back then unfortunately so I may  be recounting history.  We walked out of the hotel patio and into the town square to see it transformed into a full blown farmers market.  There were vendors stands everywhere.  Some had meat freshly butchered.  Other sold vegetables.  Where we stopped was the woman making what we called tacos.  They consisted of a home made tortilla, some black beans smeared on top with chicken meat topped with crumbled cheese.  We called over Bob and Mark who had also rousted Dave, Joe and Carol and all of stood there and pigged out.  Each cost the equivalent of a nickel and we gave her $5 American and asked her to keep making them.  When we were full she closed up shop for the day!

We spent another 4 days in the area and visited more caves and villages.  But I will save those stories for another day.

-Don

We all woke up early the next day.  Thinking back, it
was probably the excitement of the river cave we were about to explore that led
to the lack of sleep for all of us.  Lisa and I had packed our caving
packs the night before so we mulled around the room and ate some breakfast
before attempting to hook up with the group.

We waited outside our rooms as we regrouped.  Our packs
were bulging and our 1/4 inch thick wetsuits were hot- but the excitement of
what was to come allowed us to ignore it all.  When all seven of us
gathered we were off.

The hike to the cave mostly on a dirt road, but once we hit
the sink hole it was an overland trip. There were cows tied to stakes all over
the hill sides.  It made us all laugh thinking that the cows could just
run off at any time they wanted.  They all seemed content though, heads
down grazing.

The sink hole of the main entrance to Chichicasapan was over
100’ deep and a couple of hundred feet wide.  The entrance was obscured
by over growth and all you could see that even resembled a caving area was a
bit of the limestone head wall.  There was a barbed wire fence at the
beginning of the brush to keep the cows and other animals from stumbling into
the cave.

We put on our helmets and lit our carbide lamps placing them
in one of the two brackets on our helmets and ducked under the barbed wire
fence into the brush.  The floor was a jumble of rocks slanting downward
with cattle bones strewn about. It was very damp which made it extremely
slippery.  Within seconds we were standing in a huge black void with a
stream in the floor and the sound of a waterfall in the distance to the
left.   We followed the stream through the room to the point where it
exited via a high, narrow passage.  Looking up to the ceiling of the
passage made us realize why we were there in the “dry season” as wedged there
were logs, boulders and trash from the surrounding villages.  Meaning that
the stream became a torrent and completely filled the passage where we were
standing.

Having read the exploration notes, we knew the passage
dropped twice.  Once about 90 feet and the next over 150 feet each
requiring more rope to accommodate the rigging.  We had also brought many
hand lines to use in the more dicey areas that did not require a rope, but was
either slippery or exposed and there were many of those areas.

As we walked down the passage, numerous tributaries joined
the main stream.  This made the stream deeper and it gained velocity with
each new tributary.  Before long it was very deep and we were swimming.
We encountered climb after climb as we descended deeper into the cave, Dave
wanted to get pictures and we all helped due to the fact that he was the only
one with a waterproof camera at the time.  All of the pictures inside the
wet portion of the cave are courtesy of Dave.  The pictures that resulted were
phenomenal and bring us back each time we see them.  Anyway, the first
spot we chose was the first drop.  It was next to the waterfall and very
wet.  Dave gave both Bob and I a flash unit and bulb just in case one
person’s bulb did not fire.  I was going first and Bob would be the
backup.  As I rappelled next to the water I had an incredible feeling as
the pounding of the water matched my heartbeat.  I heard Dave’s whistle
which was my signal to stop so I tied off my rack and got set to flash for
him.  I heard the whistle again and hit the trigger on the unit and
nothing.  Everybody else’s unit fired but mine.  Bummer!  I put
the flash unit away and continued my rappel to the floor.

The room below where we were standing was extremely foggy due to the mist from
the falls, but I could see formations ahead.  I got off the rope and
kissed Lisa. That was a tradition with us since day one.  Then we got set
to help Dave with the shot of Bob.  His flash fired and you can see the result
it the slide show.

We took some shots of the formations and continued.  The passage widened and leveled out and the river mellowed to a lazy stream.  We decided this was a good place to eat and take more pictures.

Lisa and I decided that we would bring tuna in spring water
for our lunch and were happy to get to it at lunchtime.  The very smell
when we opened the can turned our stomach though much to our chagrin. Having
nothing else with protein in it, we had no choice but to suck it up and eat
it.  The smell of the open can followed us throughout the trip.

We shot numerous pictures in this area and some of them are
in the slideshow.  The next challenge was the kicker though. It was
a fairly short waterfall that fell in to a very deep pool.  From the top,
it looked like nothing; from the bottom we realized that we needed to rig it.
Anyway we’ll talk about that later.

There was nuisance drop after nuisance drop that did nothing
for us but lighten our packs as the hand lines were used.  Once again the
river had velocity and we were trending down.  We came to the top of an
easily climbed waterfall and noticed that our lights didn’t illuminate much at
all.  In the river we were using our electric lights which were better
than our carbide lamps and more reliable. The first one down was Dave.  He
yelled back that we had reached the top of the second drop and there was about
a 200 foot cliff right in front of us.   Although excited, we were
trashed.  We had been in the cave for seven hours at that point and had
about a ten hour trip out maybe more!

Bob was feeling a bit under the weather and felt he didn’t
have the energy to go on.  The group talked it over and Lisa and I decided
that we would go out with him so he didn’t have to sit and wait for us to get
back to this spot.

Most of the climbs out went without issue, but one.
The little waterfall I mentioned above.  Lisa decided to go first while
Bob rested and I went to help her get on the rope and up the drop.  The
rope had slipped over in to the waterfall and I was worried about Lisa.
As she climbed to the lip I dove down in the pool and got underneath her so she
could stand on my shoulders and navigate the lip which was not only in the flow
of the water but was also undercut making it very difficult and required
immense upper body strength.  Lisa pushed through it to get up the rope and
over the lip.  At the top now she re-rigged the rope well away from the
waterfall making it easy for both Bob and I to get up. She later told me she feared for her life and almost drowned at that point. Since I was under the water I had never known.

(end of part 2)

Read about this and many other adventures in Lisa’s book “Getting in Deep”available on Amazon Kindle

Back in the 1980′s; travel was a lot more innocent and the United States economy was booming. At that point we didn’t have children, nor a mortgage so as D.I.N.Ks (Double Income No Kids) our household economy was booming as well. As cavers we were known as the couple from Boyden Cave who discovered a new entrance to a larger cave system in the area and were quite comfortably caving with a group of three others that were at our level.

As a group we were always dreaming of caving in Mexico and seeing the huge passage we called borehole. Well in 1983 that happened. We got together and gained permission to go caving in one of the more well know caving areas of Mexico. While it did not have the long drops of the Hautla system in southern Mexico, it offered the borehole and the river caving that we were looking forward to and felt that we were in shape to do. We had to choose a dry period. In 1983 that was the Christmas season and we chose to go the two weeks around Christmas. Chichicasapan or “Chichi” as we called it, was the longest system that was found to date in that area and drained the entire plateau around Cuetzalan. During large thunderstorms and rainy periods water would fill the passages completely.

With the permission gained, we had two other friends join in and scheduled our flights. We found it cheapest to fly out of Tijuana. So we took a bus to San Diego and got a taxi to take us to the TJ Airport. Which at the time had to be the smallest airport on earth. We kept our climbing and camera gear as carry on, which made an interesting conversation with the Federales at the gate, but we finally conveyed that we were exploring caves and this gear was too delicate to be in our luggage. They finally let us through with a laugh or two and we were off!

Arriving at the Mexico City Airport was the antithesis of Tijuana. It was a sprawling complex of noise and people. We had Joe with us who was fluent in Spanish, find out how to get out of the airport to a taxi. We decided it best to stop on the way out and convert our dollars to pesos. With the exchange rate at the time at 500 pesos to 1 dollar; the trip would be cheap! The taxi ride from the airport to the bus station I did not see much of. I had taken my backpack and put it in front of my face after the first two close calls we had with dying. Seems the drivers were loco and our taxi driver took the cake! Arriving at the bus station alive, we again had Joe and Lisa go get our tickets to the town of Cuetzalan. We had to change buses in Puebla, but that was it. In that era, the buses would pick up any one who flagged them down on the side of the road. The bus ride out of Puebla to Cuetzalan had to be the most interesting we’ve ever had with the pig and chickens on the bus with us. This was making us feel great.

As we neared Cuetzalan we could see huge yawning cave entrances that we at the head of deep arroyos. The bus dropped us off at the beginning of town and we wandered around a bit to get our bearings. Cuetzalan is one of the largest towns in the area it occupies. It even had not one, but two churches. We were told the Hotel Garza was the place to stay and at $4 in American money, we couldn’t argue. We checked in to our rooms and found that the accommodations seemed comfortable. Once we were settled we went to the hotels’ restaurant as we were starved. Again the exchange rate worked in our favor and we pigged out on meat, potatoes and beer.

After dinner we checked our topo maps and headed off in the direction of a cave. We only wanted to scout for the next day so we went light with no gear but cameras. We were in wonderland.

The next morning we suited up and went to explore the dry caves of the area. The locals told us the devil lives in the caves and asked us to be careful. The actual names of the caves escape me but you can see from the slideshow that they were huge! One cave swallowed a river down a hole at the entrance and you could here the waterfall thundering below. The rumble was almost deafening. The same cave had a population of parrots in a skylight entrance and they went crazy when we walked up. That cave however ended in a wall of limestone about 1000 feet in due to faulting and earthquakes. We went back to the town worn out and happy.

Around the dinner table we talked about the caves we saw and next days’ trip into Chichicasapan.

(end of part 1)

Ringing in the New Year underground

Don and I used to have a saying. “If we rang in the New Year underground it would mean we would have a very good year.” It was just something that we as cavers liked, actually strived, to do. We lived by that theory and so it became common to be somewhere like on rappel on an expedition in Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico at the stroke of midnight. You can read about in “Getting in Deep” by Lisa DeLucia (read the preview available on Amazon.com).
Sometimes we stayed closer to home and rang in the New Year with a champagne toast in Pisgah lava caves in California. This is a slideshow from one of those trips. We celebrated with Gregg Oelker, Patty Riley, Ernie Garza, Russ Harter, Bill Liebman, and us, Don and Lisa DeLucia. This was the way it was for us in the 1980s and 1990s.

On this trip the sky was blue but it was still brisk. The lava caves of Pisgah are located on private land that needed permission to access entry onto the gated road. The significant caves are far and few between but worth it. There are some shelters along the desolated walk to Cat and QQ caves and rope work is involved to cave the main lava tubes. We were fortunate to have Russ Harter, a volcanologist, on our trip who shared his expertise on the many geologic wonders in the various lava tubes.

Let’s go!

Lower Yellowstone Falls

Experienced outdoor adventurers, the DeLucia family want to share their budget and green travel tips to encourage families to get outdoors.

1. Carry Baby Wipes to clean without water.
2. Bring healthy snacks and sandwiches to save money and time on the road.
3. Use canteens instead of bottled water to save dollars and landfills.
4. Stay in campgrounds instead of hotels.
5. Pack out all you pack in.

Let’s go!

Hello, we’re the DeLucia family and we like to explore caves.  It has been a passion that has led our lives filling it with geology, beautiful scenery, physical activity and quality time.  As parents we wanted our children to share our love of the outdoors so we started them early.

Saturday cave was the perfect trip for the kids at the time.  They were small and very gung-ho so we figured we’d test how well they listened.  The cave is very small and kid friendly, the surveyed traverse of the cave is less than one thousand feet.  The hike to the cave is much more demanding than the cave itself.  We were able to spend a couple of hours in it taking pictures, video and exploring.  The cave connects to a much larger cave system in the area, but unfortunately human access to that connection is impossible due to the size.  The access to this particular area now requires a wilderness permit to be anywhere on the trail.

Our love of caving goes hand in hand with camping, backpacking and hiking.  Caves are not conveniently located to the creature amenities such as hotels or restaurants.  Everything we packed in, we packed out.  It was instinctive to us as cavers to leave the area better than we found it.

As we move forward as a “green” society, some would say our caving lifestyle has enabled us to leave a lower carbon footprint on the planet.  We just know that there is nothing better than being outdoors, loving nature and seeing caves with our family.  In celebration of Christmas and the coming New Year, let’s all vow to get out more and enjoy the scenery in 2012.

Let’s go!

Zumwalt Meadows and Kings River

One of our favorite spots in the world is Kings Canyon National Park in California.  The beauty has held it’s spell on us for what feels like forever.  Don and I spent part of our honeymoon in Kings.  We were lucky and landed jobs at Boyden Cavern in the canyon on our honeymoon.  The first seven months of our marriage we worked there as cave naturalists.  Living in the forest, we really got to know the area.  We have gone back almost every year to visit the canyon.  Our kids Dani and Josh have grown up seeing the many sights the park has to offer.  It’s like a second home to us.

The Zumwalt Meadows trail located towards the Roads End in Kings Canyon offers some of the most glorious views.  The beauty is immediately enjoyable, from the parking lot overlooking the Kings River surrounded by marble and granite cliffs.  Get out of your car and head along the right side of the river.  Play close attention to the right side and you will see some grave sites.  Head over to the bridge to begin this easy one and a half mile trail that follows the river to the edge of the cliffs to the meadow and back to the forest.

We, the DeLucia’s have seen Zumwalt Meadows in many forms of weather.  One of the most captivating was our last trip there right before the roads closed for the season in late November to late April.  Having lived in Southern California all our lives we wanted to experience the essence of Fall and the legendary colors of the leaves.  Our family knew what to expect, but we were all still blown away by the beauty.  The vibrancy was amazing, equivalent to nature’s own fireworks display in textures, colors and patterns.  And we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves.

We continued our trip to Knapp’s Cabin and took the obligatory photo opp with the kids.  Don and I figure if we put those years of photos together, we’d have a photo montage of the kids growing up.  Something to think about, insert mental note here.

Of course we had to visit the caves along the way.  And we saw the wildlife we have grown accustomed to seeing.  But what we didn’t plan on, and it has come into play before, was a flat tire we got on the steep canyon road.  Fixing the problem at hand, we all had to admit that it was a positive to work in such spectacular scenery.  Flat tires and being cavers just seem to go together we have learned.

Our next stop proved to be even bigger.  We planned to end our trip venturing into major tree territory, to see the giant Sequoia trees.  These majestic wonders resemble melted candles and can give one a stiff neck peering up too long to awe at their magnitude.  The Sequoia trees can measure up to 300 feet in height and are the largest living trees on earth.  The reddish brown bark can measure up to four feet deep and is fire repellent.  The age of the Giant Sequoia trees are believed to be more than 2,000 years old.

We invite you to join us on our hike of Zumwalt Meadows, waterfalls, poking our heads into small caves, visiting the biggest trees in the world, and the most impressive colored leaves we’ve seen.  It’s just another one of our adventures where we like to go “OutDoors And not…”  Guaranteed you’ll have a good time, any and every time.

Let’s go!