Toilet Bowls and Tesla Coils

(the Breezeway Cave Tour)

by Jonny Slumpff

October 11, 2003 – It was another beautiful and sunny day in Colorado and I was finally getting underground...some of my new friends in Southern Colorado Mountain Grotto (SoCoMoGro) had invited me into one of the jewels of local caving, Breezeway. I didn’t know it when I moved to Manitou Springs, but it just so happens that the Williams Canyon Project of the NSS and it’s 70 (mostly small) caves are a 5 minute walk up my street – lucky me!

Todd Warren, Dan Sullivan, and I met at the Cave of the Winds office, filled out the necessary paperwork and retrieved the key. I felt rather fortunate to be caving with these two, as they have hundreds of hours leading Breezeway trips between them. Just like fellow cavers worldwide though, a late (cave-time?) start was in order as Dan had to drive home to get the cordless drill he forgot – one of the purposes of our trip was to work on a second gate midway through the cave. We finally got started hiking down the canyon around 10:30 and at the bottom continued down the washed out canyon road. The scenery is reminiscent of old Western movies – a shootout could be waiting just around the corner. Dan pointed out the entrance area high on the canyon wall hundreds of feet above us, appearing impossible to reach with the nearly vertical walls. After installing the requisite mountain goat feet, we started the upward march and about 20 huffing minutes later reached the well-hidden entrance at 7000 feet elevation.

We suited up, Dan unlocked the gate (a typical drainage pipe entrance – it could have been Leigh Cave), and we did some hands and knees down a manmade crawl before arriving in Cowboy Heaven, the first large chamber with a breakdown floor. It was noted that many of the caves in the Williams Canyon area have been dug open with lengthy crawlways – no open air pits here! We headed over to Peach Pit, dropped down a permanent handline and into a nicely decorated crawl named the Jail Bars. As you might guess, some careful squirming between, around, and underneath formations was required – already the beauty of this cave was becoming evident. I was excited to see what lay ahead after hearing so many wonderful descriptions – all tempered by the knowledge that some tight and twisty passages lay between the real beauty and myself.

We entered into a long, tall canyon for some 200 feet of chimneys, squeezes, and climbs. Most interesting, cavers had added a series of steel turnbuckles spanning across some of the difficult (or decorated) areas to make the traverse much easier.

We suddenly came upon the Upside Down Staircase, a nicely decorated flowstone room with a PVC ladder that ascends up one wall. Dan had designed and built this unique ladder to protect the formations from any further mud damage and it really seemed to be doing a great job. Up top we crawled across the second largest pool in the cave, Holy Waters, via another PVC construction – a ladder / bridge covered with a thick rubber material. Apparently cavers in Colorado don’t get wet very often, so I can’t wait to introduce a few to the wonders of West Virginia (or New York if I’m feeling devious).

The next obvious passage, Celestial City, went through an amazing show of aragonite and helictite crystals before heading down a 60-foot hand-dug crawl and through a rubber mat that hangs in the passage. This “car wash” feature helps prevent excessive air exchange from drying up the formations in the rear passages. Finally, we reach the Elkhorn Chamber which is the final destination for many trips into Breezeway. This stellar cellar has some of the finest beaded helictites discovered anywhere. If you have never seen them, beaded helictites are pure white formations that look like a string of pearls suspended in midair – beautiful. This area also has the very intricate Tesla Coil, which is now one of my most favorite cave formations (and not just because I’m an engineering geek). Words cannot do it justice, so see the photo for details.

I’m now slightly anxious as we approach the Toilet Bowl, which is surely a nerd filter if there ever was one. In the midst of some belly crawls there are numerous portholes that open in the ceiling, one which funnels out into a 20 feet diameter bowl – and doesn’t go anywhere. Realizing that I’m roasting at this point, the polypro comes off in a squirming fit while laying on my back...even though these caves are a few degrees cooler than back East, the lack of humidity makes the ambient temperature feel much warmer.

At the end of the crawl is a tight tube that goes straight up (the Toilet Bowl) and the arch nemesis of many cavers. As I sit upright in the tube with my butt still in the crawl, I realize why this will be so interesting – the tube is quite narrow, smooth walled, and 12 feet over my head is another 90 degree turn into a horizontal crawl out of this mess. After some huffing and cursing, thanking whoever installed the etrier mid climb, and some contortionist movements I pop out into a series of phreatic domes. One aptly named dome is Heaven’s Gate, as it has ceiling and walls covered in beaded and regular helictites glistening in our lamplight. It was a great place for lunch and a short break.

Some nice walking passage leads us to Stone River, believed to be the largest single room in a Colorado cave. It’s focus is a blood-red flowstone slope that stretches 450 feet across the room with stalactites, drapes, and various other formations adorning the upper reaches of the ceiling. There is so little water in these caves that the general lack of dripping water seems unusual to me – these formations are long past their time of growth…hardcore preservation is the only option.

Todd and I venture off into the back reaches of the cave via another twisty bit of tightness – the sidewinder squeeze. I’m instructed to inch backwards through this series of shoulder width crawls, each 3 feet long and at 90 degree angles to one another. Flip, turn, bend, flip, my knee doesn’t work that way, try again - all the while following a curious handline to an unknown destination. I pop out and soon down Rattlesnake Canyon – the steepest and most vertical section of Breezeway. A few body rappels and batman climbs later we enter the final section of cave, the Velvet Underground. It turns out that the decorations here are similar to the Bighorn “velvet” in Wyoming – wow! And I’m still less than a mile from home!

Well, since this wasn’t a loop trip, the exit description might be remarkably similar to what you’ve already read about. So, we exit the cave in a relatively quick fashion, knees in slight pain from crawling, and out into the blue sky overlooking some terrific scenery – this is how caving should be! Even though the local caves may be relatively short in length - all that caving in only 6800 surveyed feet - this one rewards you with visual excitement in return for a little bit of passage torture. Isn’t that usually the way?

(special thanks to Todd Warren for the accurate verbal summary of Breezeway passages)