2005 -- Intense caving begins
While I did visit the occasional cave prior to 2005, most of these pictures are still in print format. And many of them show unsafe caving practices, such as lack of helmets and other proper equipment. I am still deciding how to display these pictures, and when to scan and upload them. Therefore, I have chosen to start the pictures portion of this website in 2005. Also, at the time I knew very few cavers names. In the mists of time even more have been forgotten or buried in my old records, particularly last names. If you stumble across a picture of yourself that you would like labeled with your name, shoot me an email.
The 3rd quarter of 2005 is when I first started caving with the local NSS Grottos. And at the time I was minimally employed, so I had a lot of available free time. This also happens to be the best time of year to reach many of the high alpine caves in Utah, and I managed to participate in a lot of trips, and take even more pictures. In a few short months I managed 10 cave trips, and hundreds of pictures. Reducing this down to 150 pictures went quickly, but compressing more than that has been an agonizing process as I try to decide which trip or shot is not worthy of sharing with the world. Many could be cut if I were truly trying to minimize the pages, and I were to take an objective look at the more interesting shots. However, so many of my initial caving experiences and stories are from this period that minimizing the pictures simply to allow the page to load more quickly seems to be a travesty of my true caving experience. I have decided to simply let the page load slower than the rest of the site, and people can take their time and enjoy the trips that have remained some of my favorite caves and caving pictures for years afterward. These include better known caves across the state such as Thundershower, Providence, Spanish Moss, Red Baron, and many others that are lesser known.
The 4th quarter is when I started working full time in a real job after graduating school. As a direct result, my available free time was reduced substantially, and I still had many other hobbies competing with caving. On the bright side, my available income increased considerably, and I was able to start purchasing my own equipment rather than resorting to the "beg, borrow, and steal" methodology of the summer.