Johnson Canyon Caves

These sandstone caves drew a lot of attention in the early 1900's as local Kanab residents believed the lost Montezuma's treasure could be found within the canyon. All of the caves ended up with some extensive mining done inside in the effort to recover the treasure. After several months with nothing found, the residents gave up their search. All that the explorers had found in the cliffs was a sandstone chamber housing a few Native-American artifacts and human remains. You can read more about the lost treasure and the exploration done in this canyon here.
Image courtesy of wildernessutah.com
Image courtesy of ajroadtrips.com
Image courtesy of ajroadtrips.com
Image courtesy of ajroadtrips.com
Image courtesy of ajroadtrips.com


Image courtesy of ajroadtrips.com
You can barely see the outline of Jeff Baird descending into another shaft below the old boards.

 

Bat Cave

While this cave has been on our list for some time it is not actually a cave as it's only approximately 20' in length and does not achieve total darkenss. If you ask me it's not a very creative name either. It could have been called packrat cave, fly cave, guano cave or just plain Nasty Cave. This hole is filled with bat guano, flies, bees, mosquitos, rodent droppings and lots of other things that the rat dragged in; obviously storing up supplies for the coming winter. Despite the name, and all the guano in the ceiling, I did not see any bats.

I don't hesitate posting entrance pictures of this hole as it is plainly visable from the road with a steep hike up a loose rock slide and bushwacking thru thick oak brush to the entrance which is on the edge of a cliff face. At the back of the cave there is a very small opening that comes out on the cliff face to the right (referring to the entrance pic). I didn't get any decent pics at the back of the cave because, first of all there was nothing to see but guano, and second I just wanted to get out of that filthy fissure! I was 'in the area' so I figured that I should check this one off the list. Even if you happen to be up at Causey and have absoutely nothing to do I'd still pass on this one.
As you can see, the entrance passage pinches down to about 2' high but then it opens up to a small standing height room at the back.


The entrance and view from inside are pretty cool though.