Holy cow, there are a ton of cows in oracle. And they just wander all over the place. Whenever we drove by them they would stop whatever they were doing and just stare at us until we passed. 
The cave itself is awesome. It was down FR 38/ Mt. Lemmon Hwy about three miles from the campsite and was super easy to get to (there were even sedans on the road). There was a parking lot on the left just after the bridge. I'm surprised this cave had been discovered! It was really hidden. If we wouldn't have had the coordinates, we might have been wandering around the hill for hours looking for it.
Unfortunately there is a ton of vandalism in the cave itself and on the little welcome sign near the entrance. Once we got into the cave pretty deep, most of the "smoke weed" graffiti stops and its just arrows that are left. I guess pot heads are too lazy to go further into the cave :)
The arrows, for the most part, were super helpful and made it pretty hard to get lost. They only confused us once in the end and sent us a difficult way to get out. Once we went down the second ladder there was also a rope that helped us stay on track.We would have missed the main lake if we wouldn't have run into two people who were just finishing the hike. According to the map, there were four or five lakes, but we only found two. By the end of our hike we were all ready to see the sun and weren't really in the mood to look for the sites we missed.
Although we missed the sign in book, I am proud to say we went deeper into the cave than anyone else we passed. There was one really tight spot along the rope that most people turned around at, but we made it all of the way to the end on the rope. At the end of the rope was another tight spot, so I was sent through it to see what was ahead. After having to inch worm worm through the tiny little hole, I found myself in a pretty big room! I made the guys follow me because there was an arrow on the wall with the word "book," so I figured it looped back to the guestbook. I was wrong. It went to some room with a ton of trashy composition books and a HUGE spider. But we did find another rope leading out of the room to a new area. After some serious convincing we decided to follow it and were lead back to the original rope! That might have been the highlight of the caving for me.
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| "We survived!" |
After we left the caves we took a little trip to oracle to buy some new clothes (the cave was super muddy). We stopped at the one local hangout before heading home. It was pretty sweet....
The rest of the night was dedicated to relaxing by the fire. I wasn't thinking and threw my last bite of braut into the woods, then freaked out when (what sounded like) a huge animal started rustling in the bushes.
Turned out I fed a tomcat that belonged to someone in the area. After that the cat hung out with Wade the rest of the night by the fire.
The campground provided bear lockers for us, but I'm pretty sure the only big animals in the area are cows.
Overall an excellent trip and one I would recommend.
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| Three wheels! |
