Chuck Sutherland

On June 8th of 2008 in a torrent of rain, myself, Dr. Hugh Mills, and Quentin Jones ascended the mountain on which Breakdown Palace Cave is located. This was my third trip up these steep slopes. I hoped to entice someone, anyone to go into the cave with me as every previous trip ended up being solo. The entrance of Breakdown Palace was dug open in 1989 by Mike Rogers and Jack Thomison. It's a nasty climbdown that despite the narrative saying is 15', I remember as being 40' as a near vertical chimney. The chimney is the remains of a collapse feature which was shored up by the less than stable soil. It's sketchy. Hugh and Quentin watched me climb down into the entrance with a waterfall of chocolate milk flowing over me. They both shook their heads. I was going in alone, yet again. I had my first DSLR, a Pentex K10D, with me and I was hoping to get pictures there with scale of the massive formations. I snapped pictures with my on-camera flash of the massive room ...