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Show OUR FINDINGS AT BRUSH CREEK CAVE By Duane Wiley Baroid Lab., Leeton No. 1 Well BENNETT Special) Brush Creek Cave is located approximately approxi-mately 25 miles north of Vernal on the scenic Red Cloud Loop road. Its large rooms and countless count-less narrow, winding passageways passage-ways have undoubtedly been explored ex-plored by many since the first explorer entered its mouth many years ago. Its whereabouts was probably known to the Indians long before the pioneer had entered en-tered this part of the West. It's black cavernous mouth invites one to enter and explore and there is plenty of exercise within its massive walls. My friend "Dutch" Hedspeth, and I awakened one mornin; feeling- like exploring. With plenty of time and energy on hand, we decided a trip through the caverns would be in order. After arming ourselves with the equipment we thought we would need, which included 3 flashlights, a 30 foot rope, 6 red signal flares, 2 balis of kite twine and several sandwiches, we drove to within Vz mile of the cave entrance. This V2 mile can be walked very easily because be-cause of the sharp drop the path takes down the dry stream bed. The cave itself has been formed form-ed by an intermittent stream, flowing onjy at intervals probably prob-ably running only during the spring thaws, when rain and melting snow sent water down the mouth of the cave. The action ac-tion of the running- water against the limestone has gradually grad-ually dissolved the rock and carried car-ried it away in solution, thus forming the caverns. The ceiling of the cave at its mouth is about 30 feet from the floor and gradually gets lower toward the back of tha first big room, unitl it reaches only a scant 4 feet. A stalagmite of ice, about 15 feet high, was forming in the first room about 150 feet from the main entrance. This ice is forced by the water seepage from the ceiling- dropping drop-ping and freezing on the floor, thus forming an inverted cone, like the shape of a teepee. We found a good spot to have lunch, 'then started, our tour of the cave. We walked to the back of the first room to the spot where crawling was made necessary because of the 4-foot ceiling. This crawling ended after about 15 feet, when we came upon another high ceilinged room, even larger than the first. This one was littered with logs and decaying driftwood left by the stream. Four tunnels led off this second sec-ond room. The first three which We ventured into went back only a short distance until they became so small as to be impassable. impass-able. The fourth, which had the smallest opening, proved to be a continuation of the first cave. The opening was barely large enough for us to squeeze through, then came crawling on hands and knees for about 30 feet, until we reached the third , room, smaller than the first two, but still large enough to allow us to stand while walking. It was here that we made a big mistake. We decided that in order to save our flashlight batteries, bat-teries, we would light one of the signal flares for enough light to explore the extent of the room. Soon the sputtering red flare was going. There is very little draft in the cave, as we found out the hard way. I Within a few minutes we had succeeded in smoking ourselves S out as the room filled with acrid smoke from the flare. While the smoke was clearing away, we decided flashlights would be easier eas-ier to carry anyway. The floor of the third room was littered with sharp limestone lime-stone rock, which had fallen from the ceiling, making- walking walk-ing slow and difficult. The room itself was about 50 feet long, with a ceiling varying in height up to 20 feet. The cave continued contin-ued at the far end of the room with a tunnel about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide. We tied our kite string at the entrance of the tunnel and crawled on our hands and knees again, allowing allow-ing the string to wind out behind be-hind us as we went. Crawling until our supply of twine became be-came exhausted, we found no more rooms. Our knees were getting very sore and crawling was painful, so we decided to let some one else find the end of the cave, if there is one. After a bit of resting, we started our return journey. The string, we found, was well worth the time' it took to unroll, for if we had not had something to follow back, it would have been easy to take a Wrong turn the tunnel divided sometimes into as many as 4 separate passageways, pas-sageways, each in a different direction. We reached the mouth of the cave, sore, hungry, and tired, but satisfied with an experienc-J that a couple of guys from the plane states can not often have. |