For my first time going into caves like this, I was thankful for our friend Josh who was rather well acquainted with the dangers and navigation of these kinds of caves. We went back in November of '23, which was a nice time as the weather was still warm enough before bitter cold winds had hit. I would definitely suggest following the second set of instructions and using the mile marker 270. We tried parking there but a construction worker told us to leave as they were using that area (they left for the night 20 minutes later). We ended up parking at the recreation area at the start of Golden canyon, meeting up with friends, and then driving there to park on the right hand shoulder. The trail upwards was a bit intense if you haven't hiked a scramble in awhile, like myself, so be prepared for the direct incline and finding footholds prior to attempting to clamber over some of the larger boulders. The cave itself becomes fairly obvious with a light source, as the graffiti alerts you of the entrance to this cave. All of us had at least 1 if not two backup flashlights, headlamps, and our phones. We dressed in layers as we weren't sure what it might be like, but we ended up in the single layer we had beneath everything because of the work we had done. I would definitely suggest thin gloves, long sleeves, and long pants. There is a lot of glass in the dirt that I was crawling through but I managed to avoid getting cut because of my clothes. I have never gone spelunking before, but I wanted to get in with the best of them and took the tightest squeezes with our group rather than waiting in, what we had called, the "main chamber". The main area leads to the offshoots of nearly all the rest of the various parts of the cave for you to explore. Some even loop around and over the main area where a rope hangs for people to climb up or down (I was not able to follow on this one because of my lack of climbing experience). The narrowest area we found would be the nearly immediate path to your left after getting into the main cave. You go down and around only to end up in an area that is a rather large V. I am 5'4", but I weight 189 lbs, I am rather large chested, even with a tight sports bra. If you are aware of this kind of thing for yourself but want to push on anyway: you will be momentarily stuck. For me, I made it to my diaphragm and waist area before getting stuck. The best advice is to take as deep of breaths as you can before pushing all your air out and wiggling yourself inch by inch until it widens again roughly a foot away. I had to take off my helmet to get through and have one of our friends hold it, but I still made it through, so it is absolutely possible! The rest of the cave was easy compared to that squeeze and thanks to our communication we were able to adjust to certain places that could not accommodate myself (the widest person) or my boyfriend (the tallest person). The only sad part was that at the end, as we were leaving, to get into or out of the main chamber, you have to pull yourself up over this massive boulder that is roughly 6' up. There is one rock that juts out and is relatively steep for me so I had to be on my tip toes. On the way down and off of this rock, I slipped on my footing and my arms couldn't hold me, I landed on a rock below which rolled my entire ankle, leaving me with a gnarly sprain that took until this month (February of '24) to fully heal and not hurt to touch or stretch. so be very careful coming down that! Will that stop me from going back? Absolutely not! I had one of the best times of my life and even have a wild story to tell with it! I definitely would suggest this!

Area is [closed] Feb - July for eagle nesting