After arriving in Tucson we met Del at last, the woman that we are going to spend a month with. She seemed quite nice and very outdoorsy - a thorough Desert Rat. Our anticipation grew as we drove to the NOLS headquarters and just before we were about to burst, Del set us loose on the gear. After hours of ripping off packaging and being attacked by bugs of every size, we retreated to the air-conditioned building to sleep.

July 8, 1999

Today we packed up Pearl, our Ford F350 with an extended bed and 4 doors of sitting pleasure. We drove eight hours to Carlsbad and then on to BLM Hell. After unpacking bag after bag of new state of the art camping gear, we decided to go on a poisonous creature search. Fearless Scott nearly stepped on a snake. It was not as receptive as we had hoped. It rattled and curled up as we ran away and went to bed.

July 9, 1999

This morning we awoke with the anticipation of the upcoming day and the press of heat bursting through our tent door. After making breakfast, readying our cave equipment and meeting Jim Goodbar, we are ready to go spelunking. Due to Jim's experience and expertise we are able to enter "Jim's Cave" which was closed because of paleontological resources. Bones range from extinct short phase birds to tiny shrews and were more than 30,000 years of age. While on our work permit we checked the cave register, practiced cave conservation and navigation techniques and received a 101 course in cave paleontology. After 7 1/2 hours of caving, we were on the surface.

July 10, 1999

Today was our first day of caving with just Del and the three of us. We visited "Three Room Cave" for six hours and we practiced some navigation. Then after we felt comfortable, we tried to reach the back of the cave after navigating our way to a passage we hoped would lead to some spectacular rooms. We tried to photograph the formations in these rooms but a bat roost closed off the passage leading to them. Disappointed but not defeated we set out to take pictures of another area we'd already come through. We exited at 5:30 PM to a light drizzle that continued for 24 hours.

July 11, 1999

Today we visited "Bat Cave" where we completed a bat survey and we were delighted to see another snake and gigantic centipede, which Scott was so kind to point out. During our time in "Bat Cave" we saw one roost which had about 150 bats in it. To our dismay the room that was thought to contain the largest number of bats was empty. Del thought this could be due to the change in weather conditions outside. After surfacing from "Bat Cave" we walked over to Three Room Cave to visit a number of spectacularly decorated rooms which we'd missed the previous day. Navigation went extremely well which left us with ample time to organize equipment and prepare to leave BLM Hell.

July 12, 1999

At six am we slowly arose from our last night at BLM Hell. After packing up our mini base camp, we drove into town to resupply and pick up another team member, John Gookin. We learned the ins and outs of resupplying and how it helps to be super organized. We also met with Ransom Turner, the head of all forest service caves. He gave us a blanket permit for the ridge and tons of great information. Pearl drove us up to the Ridge and we made base camp, complete with our Thorlo banner, and then retired to our EMS tents.