Where: Mojave Desert, Nevada
When: Summer 2002
In the dry, mountainous region of the Mojave Desert they call Las Vegas, there's a particular technical cave that is regarded in caving circles as something of a classic. That cave is Pinnacle Cave. It's located on a shoulder of one of the high peaks in the Spring Mountains.
Fortunate enough to be invited to join a group taking a reporter into the cave for an extreme sports article she was writing, I was excited to be headed up to the mountain early one morning.
Marching up to the drop-in and assisting others in rigging the drop into the 120-foot vertical entry shaft, I eagerly descended into the depths of the canyon. Six hours of exploration followed. Tight squeezes, a few formations and even a strange room deep in the cave that featured dozens of mud babies made the trip quite memorable.
Using the rope walker system to reascend the rope at the end of the day, I was huffing and puffing by the time I reached to the surface, and something that had become foreign to me in the preceding hours...daylight.
Pinnacle Cave, Las Vegas
