Yellowstone Cave

This small cave is really more closely related to a grotto, since it never achieves complete blackness and is not more than 50 ft. long. It really only goes back 15 ft. or so and is covered in guano and rat droppings and nests. This has to be one of the filthiest caves I have ever been into.

The entrance is an easy scramble to get inside.

Looking back downhill from inside.

Spencer in the guano covered cave.

Spencer looking at some guano covered quartz crystals.

Riverside Cave

This cave is a very small but interesting one that parallels a large river. The water can be seen flowing into the cave not far upstream and again exiting through a submerged passage downstream from the entrance.

Since this cave is located at the base of a fairly large cliff, the best route down to it is through this hole in the bottom of a sink above the cliff face.  After descending the small sink and squeezing through the hole at the bottom, it spits you out at almost river level and leads you right to the cave entrance.

Shane crouching into the cave.

The arm leading downstream from the entrance was the most well defined and was well formed from rushing water during flood season.

The journey ended for us at a partially flooded passage only 20 or 30 feet in. From here we could see another 20 ft or so before the passage became completely submerged.

There are a few off-chutes, but not very promising.

The passage that lead upstream was dry and sandy, but dropped into water near the back.