Quillian Loop - Last Weekend + Snow

Hello All,

Well last weekend was another good weekend camping and exploring the Quillian Area. Man, that is a great section of the forest, and the first trip to the Big Cascades also.

I headed out Friday morning and wanted to search for some cave openings in anticipation of the Cave Ban lifting during the summer. I was searching for 2 caves in particular, but for the sake of the open forum here, I will leave out the names and location I was at in the forest. I was able to find one of them, and it was on the side of a small cove, with 2 waterfalls flowing into the basin of the cove. Very nice! The cave did have a sign stating it was off limits due to the presence of the Indiana Brown bat. This bat is on the endangered species list, and the sign stated the cave was off limits during August - May (separate closure not related to the current general ban). But it had a huge opening, I would say initially large enough to fit my suburban into before it started closing up into the passage.

My buddy from work joined me in the evening, sat around the fire enjoying the cold weather. At about 1:30 am, it started to snow. And it continued until close to dawn. When we crawled out of the tents, there was a layer of 1/2 to 1 inch of snow on the ground and the trees. It made for a beautiful sight first thing in the morning. It did not last long, quickly melting off as the sun crested over the ridge.

We decided to drop down the drainage that contains the Big Cascades and work our way down to Quillan and back out Arnold. So we walked about half way down the road from the parking and started bushwhacking. It was HARD going.
Nothing like the Riddle drainage. Even after coming thru the initial blowdown area by the road, the drainage never opened out flat like Riddle. Constant blowdowns required crisscrossing the stream as we made our way to the Big Cascades. A couple hundred yards before the Big Cascades, we came upon a smaller set of cascades and wondered if this was what every called the Big Cascades. We thought if that was it, it was not worth the effort.

But as we continued following the stream, we came to the actual Big Cascades, and were not disappointed. Very nice!
The climb down from the top of the ridge was fairly easy, with marking tape showing the spot. At this point we met Pully, Pully's Dad, Weatherman Sam, and Jaybird as they were coming downstream from Quillian.

The rest of the day we spent taking our time up Quillian to Arnold. My goal had been to complete the trip without getting my feet wet, and I almost made it. But crossing the log jam in Amphitheatre Canyon, I failed my goal. I made it across the log, went to hop to another log to the bank, and broke thru and landed in the water which was close to knee deep.

It made for a cold walk out the Arnold, but the heater felt good in the car on the return trip to Borden where we were camping.

We plan to try Hubbard from Kinlock Falls - Quillan - Riddle during the week of the 21st of December. We get two weeks off at Christmas, and plan to spend 3 days camping. Hubbard + more cave searching, my way to spend Christmas Shutdown!

Eric