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By: Austin Goodsell
By: Austin Goodsell
In September of 2023, I was on a trip led by Mitch Smoot, pushing leads in Whirlpool Passage. We had split up briefly when I discovered a hole in the ceiling. I decided to try it, and it went. I emerged into a passage that split three ways and pushed the path of least resistance. It kept going, but I decided to grab Mitch before continuing. We pushed it together and made two discoveries: what appeared to be a bison horn sticking straight out of a pile of sand, and a sump with a clear passage visible on the other side.
We knew we needed to return and investigate further, so the following year we did. We brought a group back to the sump and slowly scooped out the water. Once the level was low enough that we wouldn't have to submerge our faces, I pushed through feet-first, soaking the front half of my body. When I felt the water end and was able to turn around, I could see the passage ahead.
Because we had many other objectives on that trip, no one followed me through, so I pushed it alone for a while before reaching a fork and deciding it was time to turn back. Finally, in October of 2025, we planned a trip dedicated entirely to pushing this lead. The group included me, Mitch Smoot, Weylan Dickey, Scott Anderson, and Peter Jones.
As we were planning, the weather turned quite bad, but we had no other weekend when everyone was available, so we went anyway. To make the experience more comfortable, we decided to camp inside the cave in Clay Room. It isn't far from the entrance, but getting all our gear there was a real effort. We took The Right Way in and opted for Jenson's Way on the way out.
We set up camp Friday night and were surprised to find this part of the cave considerably colder than the rest. Even so, the constant temperature and complete lack of wind were a welcome change. Throughout the night, we could hear bats flying overhead. They tend to congregate in the riverbed passage at the bottom of the Clay Room.
It was my first time sleeping in a cave, and waking up in complete darkness was a surreal experience. Our alarms went off in the morning, but I would have believed anyone who told me it was still the middle of the night. I could have easily kept sleeping. There's something about the unbroken darkness that makes rest feel endless. I'd love to try sleeping in a cave undisturbed sometime and see just how long I'd go before waking naturally. Weylan had slept in his van outside the cave, so when he came into Clay Room that morning, we knew we needed to get moving. We were all running behind and dragging our feet about getting up.
At the junction, Weylan dropped down to explore a lead in the floor while the rest of us sat and waited, slowly getting cold. When he came back and reported that it kept going but was tight, we decided to keep moving down the main passage.
From there, we continued encountering junctions, each presenting the same choice: one passage trending down, another trending up. Down might seem like the obvious direction, but we believed this passage was working toward a connection with Clay Room — either through Cobble Crawl or Jenson's Way. The map and compass readings supported this, and the passage itself showed encouraging signs: it had water, it was climbing, and it contained organic debris like logs. So at every split, we went up.
The passage was grueling but remarkable. It was never a walking passage; you were constantly hunched over, stemming, or crawling, but there were stunning, deep pools with crystal-clear water and one stretch with beautiful formations.
After getting ready, we made our way quickly to Whirlpool Passage, noting along the way that Lake Nasty had nearly dried up. Once there, we climbed back into that same hole in the ceiling and headed for the sump. We had some worry that it might have filled back in, but fortunately, it hadn't. We still had some time, so we scooped out more water to make the crossing a bit more comfortable.
The sump is awkward to navigate, and the slope going into it makes it hard to stay dry, especially with the low ceiling and the crawling required. We all made it through without completely soaking ourselves, which felt like a win at the time, though it ultimately didn't matter much.
At last, we were all through and standing in virgin passage, only I had been this far before. I was genuinely excited to see where it would lead. We made our way toward the first junction, though on the way, we got soaked anyway. I had completely forgotten about the other wet sections, forcing you to get wet along the route.
After pushing hundreds of feet or more, we entered mud. It got progressively worse and colder. Then we noticed something unexpected: rodent droppings. Up to that point, there had been zero signs of animal life, so their presence felt significant.
The passage continued climbing. The mud deepened, and we were all cold and wet, but we needed to know what lay at the end, if there was one. Finally, the bittersweet answer came. We hit a mud crawl that narrowed too much for a person to pass. Rodent droppings were now quite abundant. We believe we were within a few hundred feet, maybe even just a few feet, of connecting to Clay Room. It wasn't entirely surprising that we fell short; on the map, all the leads out of the Clay Room need to be widened before they can be explored. Still, we left a piece of blue flagging tape at the end of the passage so that whoever makes the connection someday will know.
Given everyone's condition at that point, continuing to explore the many leads we had passed on the way in didn't feel safe. We skipped lunch and pushed hard for the exit in an effort to warm up. Coming back through the sump, the water somehow felt unavoidable in a way it hadn't going in, and everyone ended up more soaked than before.
It was still a relief to be through it, knowing we were nearly out. We exited the cave fairly quickly and were pleasantly surprised to find that the weather had held — no snow. After the trip we'd just had, that felt like a genuine blessing. We rested, then made our way back to camp.
After changing and talking things over, we decided to head home. We had planned to stay another day, but with all our gear soaked through with mud, no one had a dry set of clothes to cave in the next morning.
It was a fantastic trip, and hopefully someday we'll make the connection into Clay Room, or somewhere else entirely.
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