First day caving in Nevada

It is late and I have to up at 5 am to head to another cave tomorrow, so there is no time to give a detailed update of what happened today

However, here is a quick summary. Our goal was to find and map a rarely visited and difficult to find cave. After four miles of hiking and a lot of wandering across some pretty spectacular mountainsides, we failed to find the cave. However, we did locate two other small caves, which we surveyed, and then, on the way back to the vehicles, discovered a previously unknown cave of some size with significant formations. This was quite exciting, as the cave was clearly virgin, never seen by humans before.

We hope to return to explore and map it later in the week. Once again, I will get to go where no one has ever gone before!

Tomorrow will probably be as long a day as today, so I probably will not be able to post a more detailed report until Saturday. Stay tuned.

Bridge Day rappel

An evening pause: Bridge Day 2011: An 800+ foot rappel from the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. The event is held each fall, when they close the bridge to vehicles so pedestrians, base jumpers, and rappellers can enjoy it. I’ve done this rappel four times, twice as part of the safety team.

On the clip below, the rappel itself begins at 3:40. As this was this guy’s first rappel on the bridge, he takes it very slow, which is okay as it gives him time to enjoy the view.

Antonio Breschi – Jig in the Castle

An evening pause: An Irish jig morphs into some wild and spectacular improv.

Antonio Breschi on the piano, Mairtin O’Connor, accordion, Johnny MacCarthy, flute, Jane Cassidy, bazouki, and Steve Cooney, bass. Recorded in Belfast around 1990.

Breschi by the way is probably one of the world’s best improvisational pianists.

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