Skull  Cavern

	Located on private property not 60 feet off the road, Skull Cave is a rare drive-up cave. (Only  because we obtained the permission of the property owner beforehand, however!) The cave got its ominous name after a wet winter in the 1990’s sent torrents of water through the chasm uncovering the remains of several dozen bodies. According to 2nd hand accounts, the floor of the lower part of the cave was literally carpeted with skulls.  A group of conservationists and caving enthusiasts reburied the remains and covered them with a heavy layer of river rocks to keep them in place.   According to one local expert, the remains were possibly the victims of an Indian massacre, either by a raiding neighboring  tribe, or more likely from Spanish soldiers sometime in the early 1800’s.
				Unfortunately, the cave had recently been visited by vandals.  Judging by the names written in  lipstick on the walls and other clues, it seems likely that the perpetrators were teenaged.   More disturbing were signs that someone had been digging up the floor of the cave, disturbing some of the remains. Here and there  were bones; the picture at left shows a recently disturbed  vertebra.

A few feet away were a skull cap and a rib lying next to a child’s arm bone.  Jim was visibly upset  and spent a considerable amount of time gently re-interring these remains, covering them with several inches of soil and rock.   The sad part of all this is the vandals  were probably looking for nonexistent pottery or beads The people native to this area weren’t known for pottery or beads and the violent end that most  likely befell the people resting in this cave would have ruled out there being  much more than bones to find and  disturb.

					Despite the  unsettling discovery, we didn’t dwell on it too much.  Many caves in the area have human remains in them and vandalism, though sickening, is also common. All things considered, this cave is relatively intact. Buoyed by the sight of numerous interesting and undamaged cave formations, we pressed on though the  large main passage to the deeper parts of the cavern.
		Lines of mineral deposits on the walls show that the cave is usually flooded during the winter  months.  As the water table recedes in the summer, the deeper parts of the cave become accessible.  The last couple winters have been mild but in wetter years it is likely that most of the cave not only floods but carries fair sized  torrents of water.
								Further evidence of  this flooding is the 55-gallon drum wedged high up in a crack in the deepest  part of the cave. The drum is just visible as the brown thing directly above Preston in the picture at left.  You can see a few waterline marks on the well  above Preston as well.   It should be noted that getting our own bodies to  this part of the cave required some contortions and crawling. Only a lot of rushing water could have jammed a barrel this far into the cave and then wedged it in the spot it now occupies.  None of us have any idea as to why the barrels were placed in the cave in the first place. The area IS know for meth production...perhaps the cave was a crankster hideout at one time.

					We spent a happy couple of hours squeezing through openings and exploring the numerous leads and crevices in the cave.
		Like most caves in the area, this one tends to follow faults in the rock resulting in narrow passages that often have ceilings 10 or even 20 feet or more above. The nice thing about this is you can wedge your back against one side and your feet against the other climb vertically with relative ease. The limestone is rough  and sticks to clothing like velcro making for some very secure footing. (or is it backing?)
						Being on private land  saved this cave from much of the wholesale vandalism that plagues other caves.  In the background in this photo you can see several nice stalactites.  I’m looking over a particularly nice curtain formation in this photo.  The formation  is about 1” thick and translucent when a light is placed behind it.

Though none of the formations in this cave were particularly large or impressive, the number of  nice formations that weren’t wrecked by vandals was a real treat. The presence of a hand or glove in every picture is no accident. The most difficult part of  taking pictures in a cavern is getting a sense of scale.  Without the hand in the picture at right, one could easily think these small columns were 20’ tall  monsters or only 2” tall miniatures. Many of my early caving photos lacked a  frame of reference and are completely lacking in impact as I have to be around to explain “Uh, this is like a GIANT column that is 15 feet in diameter” while showing a picture of featureless rock that could just as easily be a close up of  a bundt cake.

The cool wet cave is home to several kinds of frogs and a few garden variety slugs.  I’m no  “frog-ologist”, but the red color of this little guy and the mottled green brown  color of another we found nearby are completely unlike the coloration I’ve seen on any other frog outside of a  cave.

Every inch of the  Sierra Nevada was explored by prospectors looking for gold by 1850. These caves  were no exception and though it is doubtful that any prospector worth his salt actually looked for gold in the caves, it is probable that the caves have been known to white men for over 150 years.    By the late 1800’s, sizable  populations of miners were living in the area, many working in the hard rock mines.  Hard rock mining started when the “easy” placer gold played out. The advent of hard rock mining spelled the end of the days of the lone prospector  and ushered in the era of corporate gold mines. The result was a pool of hourly  workers with access to lighted mining helmets and the occasional day off. It is not hard to imagine hardworking young miners or their sons exploring caves on a Sunday afternoon as a recreational activity.

The scratchings in the photo above were inscribed in 1883 by “ Q Robinson” and “N Robinson”, of “N York” The inscription at left was scratched in the wall by “PC Esovia” and “M/C Esovia” in  1888. According to Jim, scribing the box around the names was common practice around the turn of the century.  Historic graffiti in other caves around the Mother Lode shares this trait, lending authenticity to the dates.

Several happy hours  later, we emerged from the cave and headed home. I was able to catch a photo of this sunset on the very last bit of space on my camera’s flash card      Taking  pictures underground is tough not only on equipment, but is technically demanding. Caves offer limited opportunities to catch the “perfect angle”, and scale and lighting problems are huge. Out of nearly 230 photos, only a few dozen were worthy of consideration as finalists for the 19 “keepers” shown here. All photos on this page were shot with a little 3.2 Mp. Fuji (The Cave Cam!), that has proven itself both durable and portable. I cannot imagine taking our $1500 Canon digital camera and lenses into the dusty and damp confines of a cave while squeezing through 14” openings full of mud!

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