Video 2 - Journey to the Bat Cave in the Superstition Mountains

it's been about ten days since I uploaded my first video and during that time I've met a lot of new friends and learned quite a bit about Native American history the Peralta's the Jesuits and of course the Dutchman I'm pretty fortunate to live so close to such a historical area and even though the area has changed quite a bit since these legends and lore came to be I am drawn into these mountains as if they're speaking to me after filming footage for parts of this video I walked down this dock at Canyon Lake and wondered what life was like 100 200 500 years ago in this area clearly this dock wasn't here nor was the lake the journey I'm about to take you on is one filled with pyramids treacherous caverns symbols carved into rocks extremely rough terrain and a hike that has left me feeling extremely proud to be able to accomplish it but also a great respect for the natives and early explorers that lived in this area the hike from the Medicine Wheel to the bat cave is only about two and a half miles long but those two and a half miles for me was the most demanding workout I have ever done so come on let's go let me show you what I found starting at the Medicine Wheel it looks pretty identical to when I shot here no one has come to rearrange the rocks or ruin what the production company made to film their series even though this medicine wheel is completely fake it still matches the lore and legend of this area walking down towards the slot canyon that I showed you in the first video you come to an old barbed-wire fence walking across it it's not too far to the entrance that will start this hike I brought with me two gallons of water downloaded all the maps of the area to my iPhone brought an extra battery pack a first-aid kit a compass and quite a few different snacks and a water filtration bottle one of the biggest warnings that I have received from folks is to beware of rattlesnakes knowing that I'm going to a very remote area with no cell service and alone I learned the trick of throwing rocks into tall grass to see if there were snakes there looks like we're good to go making my way down into the canyon I couldn't help but notice what looked like steps they were aligned too perfectly for nature to do it it's kind of cool to be adventuring into places where people made stuff like this hundreds or even thousands of years ago the first thing you come to when you're down in the canyon is a lot of trees you learn pretty quickly to make sure you have nothing hanging off of your pack and to wear a hat to make sure you don't slice your head open on any of the thorns here comes the first hurdle you have to jump down about 15 to 20 feet into the sand below getting back up well that's a whole different story now that I'm down in the riverbed the journey in front of me starts out pretty easy the walls on the side of the canyon are small and the terrain is pretty simple now just to be clear I'm not walking down a quote-unquote trail this is an area I found on my own after doing research online I'm excited to show everyone what the Superstition Mountains look like naturally I want to take you back to the previous clip see that big rock in front of me I call this rock the priests rock to me a face is really easy to make out as well as a Roman Catholic headdress pause the video here for a second if you'd like when I showed this photo to my mom she found four different faces in that rock how many do you see the area that I'm walking in has a lot of freshwater ponds never knowing exactly how long any hike will take it's really important to bring a lot of water what I do is fill up a plastic jug with pond water and use this water filtration kit as a backup if you ever come out to the superstitions I'd really suggest getting something like this as soon as I got around the priests rock out of the blue the wind picked up the natural air conditioning was pretty nice but it's a good thing I wasn't hiking with someone's superstitious I want you to pay attention to this pyramid-shaped rock they're pretty rare considering all the rocks in the area I'll touch on this in a few minutes you also pay attention to the smooth cut saddle-shaped groove in the rock below it's pretty interesting as you can tell not being on a trail definitely has its downsides I hope that you're able to get the idea of just how tricky this terrain can be I turned the camera around so you can see what I had just hiked through if you think this is bad wait a couple minutes at this point the rocks are getting to be over ten feet tall being out here in the middle of nowhere you start to notice strange rock formations seeing all this on video is one thing but can you imagine the Native Americans and later the Jesuits and Peralta's that explored this area it was still in the upper 60s lower 70s at this point not too bad at all but I am glad that I brought a lot of water with me you get really really dehydrated hiking over all those I see a lot of people talk on different forums that call themselves Google Earth errs pay attention to the map I showed you at the start of this video then look at the terrain it's really something you should keep in mind when you're planning your next adventure the next thing I need to learn about is geology I'm sure these rocks could tell a lot of stories at this point I'm about 1/3 of the way through the hike and about two and a half hours in rather than keep narrating I'd rather you guys just pay attention and appreciate what it looks like in this Canyon here's some music to go along with it remember I wanted to tell you about the pyramids well this one's my favorite notice the three golf ball-sized holes carved into the rock in front of it Laura will teach us that this is an early Spanish symbol for treasure it's too bad I wasn't with my buddy Dave that brought a metal detector along next time Dave next time now maybe I'm just getting delirious at this point in the hike but that rock in front of me looks just like a lizard head looks like someone even placed a rock there for its eye considering I never saw any footprints in the sand I imagine this happened quite a while ago what do you guys think no check this out at first I thought this square shape had been spray-painted but then I remembered that only the production company spray paints the rocks out here and this one wasn't in the shape of a hand in all seriousness what are the odds of nature creating this exact square shape on a rock here again another unusual formation in the rock this time out of quartz unsure what the darker color rocks surrounding it is anyone know all right I'm going to talk for this part that right there is probably 60-foot drop that rock oh it takes up my old screen it's probably the biggest rock I've ever seen I take it down obviously you can't slide down that way I don't know I don't remember how to get down but I'll figure it out this is definitely one of the more challenging parts out here that's pretty high almost there's a huge boulder right there that looks like it could fall at any second and look how tall it is pretty though like parallel lines of water okay this cave here is the first cave that you come to on the hike while it's not nearly as big as the bat cave it's still pretty cool to check out now wait for it wait for it BAM you know it had to happen at least once right and finally I made it to the Batcave this wasn't my first time here as many of you know members of treasure Netcom will remember a gentleman that I met that I called the beekeeper he told me of all the times he had been in the bat cave over the past few years how we loved to photograph the bats and had explored all three caverns inside of the upper cave area I was able to show him a video of the part of this series where one of the cast members made a deal with the rest of the crew to climb up the ladder and within inches of getting to the top found a small cavern with a Jesuit cross in it which was later explained as saying that millions upon millions of dollars of gold was in this cave there isn't it's a lie a lie made for a TV show let's get that out of the way before we continue what I do want you to pay attention to is on the right side of the cave you will see a marking that looks like a bat in flight I've done a lot of research on this since I returned and come to find out that symbol is actually one that goes deep into Native American lore the natives believed that the bats would protect them in battle would distract the enemy and would prove to make them victorious I believe this area was a fortress of sorts hundreds of years ago during the time of the Confederates they would ascend into the cave and farm the bat guano out of it you see this big piece of cable the line has since recoiled but these lines would run off of gravity the pails of guano could be sent down to the Salt River about 500 yards away from here do you remember the part of the series where the guy that made the deal to go into the bat cave pull on a cable everyone started freaking out and saying it was a booby trap nope it was just a handle that held one of the buckets of bat guano one thing about the Arizona climate is things like wood are really well preserved it's hard to tell exactly how old the ladder is seeing as it was out of sunlight in the cave there's a lot of lumber lying around the area though one of the more crappy parts about being up at the bat cave is that the guano is like quicksand you can see here just normal walking put your boots completely under all this guano between that and the pretty intense smell you really don't want to spend much time up here here is some video footage looking at the ladder that goes into the bat cave what you see on the walls is actually condensation from the ridge above that has dripped down mixed with the guano and has made an incredibly slippery surface now unless the Jesuits had potty-trained these bats you can see there is at least two feet thick of guano on the outside of the cave remember when the guy from the series got into this quote Jesuit cave am I the only one that noticed that there was no bats flying around he wasn't complaining of any smell which would be a lot more intense inside of a closed area like a cave and the potty-train bats did a great job of not using that area of the cave as their restroom I mean I guess they could have made some sort of deal with the Jesuits beforehand hmm maybe on season 2 getting back to reality check out this panoramic shot that I made from the base of the ladder it's incredible notice how small the riverbed is below and how small the rocks are it will show you exactly how high up this cave is here is what seems to be a base stone where the Confederates attach their gravity-powered guano drop pretty cool that a lot of this stuff is still here actually for the next section of video footage I just want you to listen to what it sounds like up at the bat cave and that about sums up my journey to the Batcave I hope that everyone is able to see a much more realistic view of the area I started all of this because I was concerned that someone was going to climb that ladder and go searching for the gold when in reality the only thing they would find is a helicopter ride to the emergency room I have already proven in my first video that the series was a fraud well I just showed you how the finale was as well enjoy the photography and video on the trek back to the car it was a long day doing all of this and I have the battle scars to prove it if you've enjoyed this video and my previous video please let me know I enjoy making these and will continue to do so if I get a lot of feedback so leave comments either on YouTube or on Treasure Netcom where I post the videos for everyone to see thanks again and remember tread lightly

Channel: Orion Adventures

Views: 122,651

Rating: 4.7700453 out of 5

Keywords: Canyon Lake (Lake), Apache Junction (City/Town/Village), Tortilla Flat (City/Town/Village), Reality Television (TV Genre), Legend of the Supersition Mountains, Debunking Reality TV, RG1976, Treasurenet.com, Bat Cave, Bat Guano, Hiking (Sport), Adventure (TV Genre), History Channel

Id: vQCCyohKjFM

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2015