The Well
The talus cave found on the first visit, with a higher pit opening connecting to its lower entrance.
Historical caves · Location withheld
The Seven
Wonders
Three visits to one familiar ledge. An old map, four caves, and the discovery that the first answer was only the beginning.
Follow the story
Field narrative / 2013–2017
A place passed by
The name survived on maps and postcards. The passages behind it took more than one search to understand.
01 / The Well02 / Two-Way & Unknown03 / Old Lady’s Kitchen
01 / The first visit
What looked like the answer.
I had read of a cave in a long ledge described in historical accounts. Its geology and the history attached to it were enough to send me looking.
Adrienne and I found the ledge and, before long, a remarkable series of spaces among its fallen blocks. We explored the talus cave and believed we had found the place described in the old accounts. I wrote up the visit as a finished search.
That first discovery was real, but my identification was premature. The passage we had entered belonged to a cave later identified as The Well. Its opening higher in the talus drops into the same system. We had found part of the Seven Wonders without yet understanding how its pieces fitted together.
The archival turn
A name on a map.
A clue in an old account.
Several years later, my friend Jim Moore, who also researches historic caves, asked to see the site. After our visit he sent me two discoveries from the archives: a nineteenth-century map naming the ledge and a detailed account of its caves.
The account described four caves. It made clear that the cave Adrienne and I had found was not the elusive Kitchen. Instead of closing the case, the older description gave us a way to test each opening against a physical feature.
The location and archival reproductions are omitted here to protect the site; the story remains about how the evidence changed my interpretation.
02 / The return with Jim
Two fractures in the cliff.
On our return, Jim noticed fractures in the ledge as we passed. We examined the cave I already knew, then came back to the openings that had caught his eye.
One fracture climbed into a sizable chamber and led to a second entrance above. That paired route matched the historical description of a cave with two openings into a room. I call it Two-Way Cave.
The other descended to a chamber and continued through a turning, narrow passage. It matched a different cave in the old account, described as extending an unknown distance. I call it Unknown Cave. They are separate features. We had walked past them on the first trip, close enough to see the rock and still miss what it held.
Once again I thought the ledge had given up its last surprise. Jim’s newly found account showed otherwise: one cave was still unaccounted for.
03 / The final search
Above the familiar route.
The historical account pointed toward another well-hidden cave. I returned a third time and searched beyond the entrance I had once mistaken for it.
A great slab leaning against the rock was unmistakable, its shape visible from the ravine. During the search a muffled barking sound seemed to come from somewhere in the cliff. Vultures lifting from the rocks explained the brief, strange interruption before the search continued.
Eventually I found a fissure leading into the cave the old description had pointed to all along: Old Lady’s Kitchen.
Hidden in the cliff
The entrance was there all along. The historical description made it legible.
Inside the Kitchen
The cave the account remembered.
Inside, connected chambers and tight passages opened toward a window on the valley. This was a more complex place than the first opening had suggested.
A low chimney led between spaces. The rock showed blackening from fires, and a ring of stones lay partly buried on the floor. Initials, “GN,” had been cut into the granite. These traces show that people had spent time here, but they do not by themselves identify who made them or when. The initials remain an unanswered question.
Standing in the cave, I could compare its position, hidden character, and passages with the 1895 description. I am confident in the identification of the four caves. It took the map, the detailed account, and three visits to replace the attractive first guess with a more complete reading of the ledge.
Reading the ledge
Four caves in the historical account.
Two-Way Cave
A fracture cave with two openings leading into a chamber, matching the account’s paired entrance description.
Unknown Cave
A distinct fracture system whose chamber and narrow continuation fit the separate passage in the account.
Old Lady’s Kitchen
The concealed cave that took a third visit and the historical description to identify.
What we walk past
A familiar place is not necessarily a place fully seen.
People had known this ledge for generations. It appeared on maps and postcards, and earlier visitors had written about its caves. Yet even with that history in hand, the answer changed each time we approached from another direction. Discovery here meant returning, reading more carefully, and allowing the rock to correct the story I had first told about it.
Read the related field note →Field record & sources
Based on Michael Girard’s field account and recollection, informed by a nineteenth-century map and newspaper description. Location-identifying reproductions and route details are omitted to protect the caves. Field photographs by Michael Girard; see the image credits.
All expeditions ↗