Lechuguilla
    During November of 2004, I was privileged to join an exploration and mapping expedition in Lechuguilla Cave in Carlsbad National Park.  Many consider this cave to be the most beautiful in the world.  During this expedition, led by Peter Bosted and John Lyles, we surveyed 4201 feet of new passage and did 1580 feet of resurvey.  The Zombie Zoo, a new southwest trending passage near Zanzibar, was discovered, and a tantalizing lead in the Motherload was left unpushed due to lack of rope.  The expedition participants were:  Peter Bosted (VA),  John Lyles (NM), Mark "Elvis" Andrich (MO), Andy Armstrong (AZ), Bonnie Armstrong (AZ), Daniel Chailloux (France), Matt Covington (CA), Jen Foote (NM), Brian Kendrick (NM), Gary Whitby (Australia), Jenny Whitby (Australia), and Dave Wools-Cobb (Tasmania).

Photos November, 2004

   In November 2005, I returned for my second Lech trip with a similar team of people. This trip was a series of somewhat far-flung trips from Deep Seas Camp out to various remote parts of the cave. We surveyed again in Motherload (connecting our lead to the Wild West). We also pushed and surveyed in Zombie Zoo, Zanzibar, and Southern Climes. This year Gary Whitby, Jen Foote,and David Wools-Cobb were unable to make it and we were joined by cavers Michel Renda (France) and Darren Dowler (Austrailia). On this trip we totaled 4127 new feet of survey and 704 feet of resurvey.

Photos November, 2005

  In November of 2006, I returned again for an expedition to the Far West of Lechuguilla.  This time I was joined by my wife Elizabeth.  Another new caver to join our team was Heather Levy.  Whereas the theme of the 2005 trip seemed to be far-flung trips, the theme of this year was LOTS of survey footage.  Working in a number of areas closer to camp, along with several minor breakouts allowed us to accumulate 6,141 feet of new survey and 1,271 feet of resurvey.  This added enough passage to bring the total length of the cave to more than 120 miles.  In the course of the week we had a breakout while working in some tight gnarly maze passages off of the  Mirage Room.  This ended up breaking into some a large breakdown room with giant dogtooth spar.  This new area of the cave was dubbed "Spah Hahbaah."  Just above the breakdown chamber we made a connection into Jackpot which closed a 4713 foot long loop which included numerous stations set in 1988.  Work continued in Motherload, Zanzibar, and Southern Climes.  On the last day of the trip Elizabeth, Bonny Armstrong and I broke into a large gypsum encrusted boneyard maze that we reached after I did a 50 ft aid climb.  With several hours of frantic survey we managed to rack up over 600 feet making it the most survey that any team got in a single day during the trip.  We dubbed the new maze "Friday Night Fever."

Photos November, 2006