New, from Wyoming.
Posted: Jun 30, 2010 12:15 pm
I am extraordinarily new at this whole caving ordeal, I have been to a few caves in my life but until yesterday had not entered any of them. I was out swimming the Big Horn River near Sheep Mountain, Wyoming with some friends from the area when one of them suggested we go up to an old cave he knew of. I have always been interested in caves but haven't had the opportunity to explore any before this. We did not have any headlamps, flashlights or even glow sticks to bring with us into the cave but we all had Bic lighters, so we got dressed and started our 30 minute walk. By this time it was getting late so we decided we would just explore what we could once we got up to the entrance of the cave, and come back this weekend to explore more if we could. As I returned home last night I found myself looking through all of the different Wyoming maps I could find for a hint as to what the name of this cave was, and thanks to the many pictures that other cavers had taken of the entrance and surrounding area I have been able to place it as being at least locally called Spence Cave. I wanted to look into the history of the cave but was unable to find much information on it at all, and was hoping that by signing up here and getting my story out there that I may be able to get more information on it by this Saturday, July 3rd as that is the day my friends and I want to go explore it. The information that I have so far is that in order to get to the very end of the cave you must do some rappelling, which I have minimal experience in, and "some" was the only description I could find, which is, uncomfortably vague. I also know that the cave is gated, but as we got up to the entrance the gate was open and the padlock was hanging on the side of the gate, locked. One of the friends with me tugged on the gate and couldn't get it to move very far, which suggested it had been open for a while and not moved. We will be bringing some packs with water and some extra food in case anything happens, several flashlights with spare batteries, a couple hundred yards of rope, and some gloves. If anyone has any additional tips for us or any extra information on Spence Cave please notify me. Contacting me by email would be more likely to get my attention, this can be done at Jswand7@gmail.com.