Groaning Cave, Colorado

Before I got married, the only reason I visited Colorado was for the snow skiing. Now I know there’s much more to this mountainous state, and for me it’s for the underground. Picture this, the most beautiful hiking country… that also leads to an impressive wild cave named Groaning Cave.

Don and I were there for a caving regional and excited to see Groaning, the longest cave in Colorado. The cave at that time was surveyed at six and one-half miles and protected by the U.S. Forest Service.  To enter the cave we had to get a permit and sign a waiver of liability.

Groaning is a phreatic cave meaning it was made by solutioned water under the static water table.  In speleogenesis, phreatic action forms cave passages by dissolving the limestone or marble via the cracks or joints in the rock in all directions.  So in other words the cave passages were carved underwater.  The action left behind passages resembling a grid that makes it easy to get turned around.   It’s a high altitude maze that is confusing and easy to get lost in.

The cave was discovered in 1968 and was officially surveyed in 1975.  By 1995 it had 8.8 miles of surveyed passages.  On the 2010 World’s Longest Cave List, Groaning Cave came in at number 242 with a total surveyed length of 11.15 miles/17951 meters and a depth of 149 feet/45.4 meters.  The cave sits at an elevation of  9800 feet and has a temperature of 38 to 42 degrees.

The flowers on our hike to the cave were incredible with my favorites, Columbines in purples and yellows, all growing wild on the mountains. I was in Heaven before we even ventured into the cave, our reason for the trip.  Of course living at sea level and hiking in the high country makes for a more difficult climb while trying to catch my breath.  But there is something to breathing all that fresh mountain air that can rejuvenate the body and spirit.

A Colorado caver who knew the cave well led the trip for us.  We got to see the highly decorated rooms that are filled with gypsum and dripstone passages. The names of these rooms are descriptive:  Serenity Hall, White Forest, the Black Cathedral, Snowball Hall and the Land of the Inverted Mushrooms located in the farthest reaches of the cave.  Groaning then was mostly a horizontal cave with the largest room the Shattered Hall requiring a 28-foot rope drop to get to the farthest reaches.  The cave has since been pushed many more miles as evident by the longest caves list.

Let’s go!

DeLucia continues caving tradition

By Kelsey Chung

Reprinted from “The Anchor,” January 15, 2010

Her heart beat loudly under her shirt as she stretched her body and hand out to the small foot hole in the wall.

In her mind she questioned herself, “can I seriously do this?”  Her dad was tiptoeing to hold his daughter’s foot while she reached for the hole.

It was obvious that it was too far of a reach when she grasped the little ledge.

Half dangling in midair and her body stretched out diagonally, her heart dropped when she lost her grasp on the wet, slippery rocks and started to slip down.

Without any harnesses to secure her or a helmet to protect her, she slid down four feet into the unknown and fell on her butt.

Unhurt, she laughed as she stood up from the wet and dirty rocks.

Although it may sound like a nightmare for some people, for Senior Daniella DeLucia, this was just one of her many trips to caves.

Spelunking, or caving, is exploring caves and the different rock formations and crystals that are made in the caves.

“It’s like walking into a mine but one that is made by nature,” DeLucia said.

After her parents married and became passionate about caving, caving has been part of DeLucia’s life even before her birth.

“I started caving basically before I was born.  My mom actually led an expedition when she was pregnant.  Everyone told her that she was crazy but she still did it.  I first went in when I was three weeks old,” DeLucia said.

Caving for DeLucia has become more than an unusual hobby.

“Once I started, I was like ‘Whoa! Cool!’ but now it’s more like when my parents talk about really hard caves, I want to go because it’s a challenge to do it and it feels pretty amazing when you come out of a challenging cave,” DeLucia said.

For DeLucia, caving offers her the challenge and excitement she needs in her life.

“I love the excitement and thrill of it; and the mystery of not knowing what’s in each cave.  Every cave is different.  Some are just walk throughs but some have big drops and you have to crawl around,” DeLucia said.  “Most of the time, I’m excited but I do get nervous when there are drops.

Caving also shows the many natural wonders of the world.

“My favorite place is Church Cave because it’s really pretty.  Inside, there’s a part called the Cathedral Room.  It’s like a big granite room.  And in the middle of it, there is an alter looking thing that shines and sparkles.  And it’s all nature made,” DeLucia said.

Although caving offers beautiful scenery, the nature made caves can also be a dangerous place.

It’s definitely a hobby but it’s also one of those things that I’m serious about.  You always have to think and you have to be serious about it because you could not come out from a cave because of one bad move,” DeLucia said.  “It’s dangerous because there are sharp rocks everywhere and if a rock from above fell, it could bring you down and you could fall.  You always have to be alert and aware of your surroundings,” DeLucia said.

Because of the dangers, the buddy system is required when caving and communication is critical in case of an emergency.

“You have to respond to other people.  My dad’s thumb was crushed one time because the person above him failed to warn him that a rock was falling,” DeLucia said.

DeLucia’s family try to plan at least 2-3 trips every year.  Although it is possible to sleep overnight in some caves, their trips are mostly one day long.

“I hope that I continue to do this when I’m older.  When I have family someday, I would want them to be involved in it too,” DeLucia said.  “The beauty and challenge of caving is just amazing and also humbling knowing that nature created this stuff.”

Mount St. Helens National Monument, Washington

On March 20, 1980 a 4.1 magnitude earthquake shook the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington, sending a plumb of ash 7,000 feet high.  The eruption was so intense the blast was heard from as far away as Vancouver, Canada and Redding, California, and set off a wave of volcanic activity that lasted for months. Trees were blown down, strewn haphazardly all over the mountain, and forever changed the landscape, that has yet to recover.

By the end of April Mount  St. Helens, a once perfectly shaped volcano, now had a one mile long and half mile wide bulge that was 320 feet high.  Debris avalanches fell half a mile down the mountainside.

Another eruption on May 18, 1980 sent pumice and ash northward into the valley below and caused 57 fatalities, including a U.S. Geological Survey scientist.  It was one of the largest ever recorded.  Satellite images show the 1980 eruptions blast zone affected 230 square miles of forest.  Old trees were ripped out by the 650-mile per hour blast leaving splintered remnants behind resembling toothpicks littering the mountainside.  At the base of the volcano is the ash that was deposited more than three feet from the 15-mile high eruption plume that lasted nine hours killing all vegetation for 100 miles.

Thirty years later the ash covering the mountain that once stripped all life now benefits the land by serving as mulch in the harsh blast zone and aiding foliage recovery and growth.  Trees and colored flowers now fill the open landscape, demonstrating the eventual transformation to normalcy in the pumice filled forest.  Prairie lupine and Lodgepole pines now dot the land.

We went there two years ago and you could still see an occasional puff of smoke from Mount St. Helens.  Though now passive and quiet, the volcano is not shy to show she is still very much alive.  Follow us, the DeLucia’s, as we tour Mount St. Helens Volcanic National Monument.

Let’s go !

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

If Indian ruins are interesting and exciting to you then plan to visit Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.   During the middle 800s the Chacoan people began building the great ceremonial houses of Chaco Canyon and this lasted for the next 300 years.  These buildings were planned out from the inception, rather than adding on to existing buildings as was the past way of construction.  The buildings were made to be aligned with either the sun or moon and by 1050 Chaco had become the ceremonial center of the San Juan Basin with these buildings housing up to 3000 people in the large ceremonial kivas.

The great buildings of Chaco Canyon included Pueblo Bonito, Una Vida, and Penasco Blanco.  In time Hungo Pavi, Chetro Ketl, Pueblo Alto and other structures were added to the growing number of ceremonial buildings.  The largest, Pueblo Bonito held four story buildings with 700 rooms and was the size of the roman coliseum.  It seems that all of the separate sites were connected by roads to more than 150 other great sites in the surrounding area.  This open path created the roads that the religious migrations took to get the area  As the landscape was between sacred mountain sites and mesas, Chaco Canyon was a place of deep spiritual meaning for the past inhabitants which is still evident today with the remaining ancestors.

Chaco Canyon descendants believe the pueblo was a special ceremonial gathering place for all the local clans people to share cultural traditions and knowledge rather than a farming community which housed people.  Chaco was central to the Navajos who flourished in the complexity of its community and created a ceremonial main hub unlike any other even to this day.

By 1100-1200 construction began to slow at Chaco Canyon.  The region was shifting and Chaco’s influence spread to Mesa Verde, Aztec, and the Chuska Mountains’s centers as the people also migrated away from the great Pueblo.  Eventually the Chacoan Indian ways were incorporated with other cultures.  The descendants of was once the prominent Pueblo in the vicinity merged to become the modern Southwest Indians of today.  Chaco Canyon to them is a sacred and spiritual place to be respected and honored as among one of the most important recorded archaeological sites with nearly 4,000 ruins in the park.

Chaco Canyon is located at an elevation of 6,000 to 6,800 feet in a semi-arid desert in the southeast edge of the Colorado Plateau.  The park gets an average of 9.1 inches of rain a year.  Human occupation in the area spans 7000 years with the Chacoan Indians.  Artifacts found in Chaco are among the largest collections in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Chaco Collections at the University of New Mexico.  These collections reveal the average height of the Chocoan man was 5 feet, 5 inches, evidence gained from the smaller doorways.  The small doors also allowed for more stable heating, as a slab over the door works effectively to keep the warmth in.  This was also a great defensive measure.  Research indicates the timbers apparently came from 60-70 miles away to build the great pueblos of Chaco Canyon.

The history, great pueblos, and beautiful landscape all add up to a wonderful adventure awaiting you at Chaco Canyon.

Let’s go!