Neffs cave (Utah)

Neffs cave is a cave in the Wasatch mountains near Mount Olympus, Utah, in the United States. Neff Canyon Cave is no legendary cave that few have visited, located somewhere far back in rugged mountains. On the contrary, parts of the gully in which it lies can be seen from the windows of members of the Salt Lake Grotto of the N.S.S. Its mouth on the west face of the rugged Wasatch Mountains is about two thousand feet above their homes and less than five miles away. A jeep road even leads off a suburban Salt Lake City street and extends to a point which is only a 45-minute hike from the cave. [Halliday, William " Adventure is Underground: The Story of the Great Caves of the West and the Men Who Explored Them. Harper & Brother, Publishers. New York. Chapter 6. pp 60-84.] When it was first measured, Neffs cave was the deepest known cave in the United States, and currently is the 13th deepest at 1,163 feet. [http://www.caverbob.com/usadeep.htm]

Discovery

It was in 1949 that some high school boys stumbled across the obscure opening of the cave while hiking in the Wasatch Range. They squeezed into the tiny, jagged opening and saw by the dim light that the cave continued downward at a steep angle. In 1950 they returned to the cave with friends of their own age, equipped with flashlights and ropes. They tied a rope outside the cave entrance, and began to climb down along its length. Soon they came to its end and had to return home to borrow more rope. In this way they made several visits, advancing deeper and deeper into the cave. Finally, on March 22, 1950, three of the young explorers came to a great pit leading downward into the largest chamber they had yet found in the cave. It was not quite vertical, and they had plenty of rope. One by one they slid down a drop-off of more than 150 feet and continued exploring until they came to still another pit and could go no farther. When they tried to climb back up, they found the slick rock unscalable, and waited until a rescue team found them. [ [http://www.caves.org/grotto/timpgrotto/Neffs.html Neffs Cave: America's Deepest Cave ] ]

Today

Today the cave is closed to the public due to safety hazards. To enter the cave a person must have written consent from the United States Forest Service.

ee also

* Cave Conservancies
* Cave Research Foundation
* Caving
* Grotto
* List of caves
* National Speleological Society

References