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Henry Huffstutter

@mtbfast001

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This post is to serve as a formal documentation of a recent expedition that may have led to a discovery!

On September 26th 2026, @rjcross314 and I hauled about 250lbs of scuba gear 2.5 miles into Blue Pool, the resurgence of the McKenzie River. We did this partially because of the novelty, and because of a strong suspicion that a cave may be present. To our knowledge, we are the second group to ever do this, preceded by @wallysanson and @brian_w_heisler . While these men may have discovered the entrance of the cave, they didn't appear to have dive lights. The third and fifth slide of this post contains footage with never before seen views of this cave.

The visible passage is human sized, and appears to continue well beyond the portion we observed. RJ and I are not cave divers, so we didn't go very far. We were able to see about 50ft into the passage before the white sandy floor lifted up and out of view. The cave sits in approximately 30ft of extremely cold 38F water with incredible visibility, I estimate at least 200ft.

While we cannot claim we discovered this cave with good conscience, we believe we explored and documented a significant portion of this feature never before observed. Because of this exploration, RJ and I have decided it would be cool to suggest a name for this cave (it doesn't seem to be documented). As we are not the sole discoverers, we didn't want to name it after ourselves, but instead decided to pay homage to those with the guts to take on the truly grueling logistical and physical challenge of diving this site.

It took us 10.5 hours to get ourselves and roughly 250 lbs of equipment into and back out of the pool. We spent only about 30 minutes underwater.

Because of the challenge, and the brilliant blue water, we're calling this cave "Challenger Blue".

We'll see if it sticks lol.

#discovery #scuba #cavedive #cave #exploration taken in Blue Pool (Tamolitch) by @mtbfast001

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16 days ago

I feel very lucky to say I had an AWESOME summer! I clocked a bunch of dive time, tried to keep up with my mom swimming (she is an incredible endurance swimmer), explored cool new places, spent some time in service with the Coastguard, clocked a bunch more dive time, left the country for the first time, built new adventure gear, and clocked even more dive time!!! Hard to complain. Thanks to everyone who made it happen! 🤘

#summer #diving #swimming #travel #adventure taken in Folk Valley by @mtbfast001

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25 days ago

Holy LARP dude, just go diving smh🫩

(Fr tho we did a 45ft dive trying to recover a drone..... mission failed 😭)

#larp #ridiculous #fun #boat #swimming taken in Henry Hagg Lake by @mtbfast001

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a month ago

50ft inverted rappel off bridge! SO FUN

#rappel #river #adventure #swimming #safety by @mtbfast001

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a month ago

Smoked my back on this one 😂

#sendit #ropeswing #river #fun #exploration by @mtbfast001

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2 months ago

Ever wonder what it's like under a waterfall??

#diving #fun #river #safety #waterfall by @mtbfast001

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3 months ago

The other day RJ, Robbie, and I had the rare opportunity to directly help a gentleman who had lost his phone off the edge of a dock! I got lucky and found it on my first dive down with excellent direction and supervision from all involved. It still worked! It always feels great to help someone using a skill you're so passionate about, and doing this with some of my friends made it even better. High fives all around, what a time!

Technical details:
Dive rig: None/breath hold
Depth: ~15ft
Visibility: ~8ft
Temperature: warm
Logistics: very easy, we just happened to show up!

#diving #fun #river #help #safety taken in Champoeg State Park by @mtbfast001

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3 months ago

More DPV testing, this time with the custom MOD2 dive rig I built!

#diving #fun #river #exploration #safety taken in Newberg, Oregon by @mtbfast001

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4 months ago

Had an absolutely SICK day with @rjcross314 today! We put a bunch of time on the diver propulsion vehicle and practiced a ton of navigation. It was a pretty shallow day with a max depth of 40ft, but the vis was great and the water was warm! We also saw a bunch of cool fish, so more videos coming soon! (PS, those NVGs are fake, explanation on the way lol)

#diving #fun #safety #adventure #river taken in Willamette Greeway State Park by @mtbfast001

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4 months ago

JUNIOR YEAR COMPLETE!!! This year was awesome and I learned a ton both academically and about myself!

My buddy RJ and I started off strong by designing and building our own diver propulsion vehicle, along with some custom rappelling gear and tons of other dive equipment! We use all the stuff that we make, which is super fun!

I also spent a fair amount of time on more typical adventures, camping and hiking in some pretty incredible places. I learned how to operate GMRS radios, got better at photography through trial and error, and practiced nighttime navigation a lot.

My time in the Coast Guard has been super cool too! I spent my time learning about the station's 29ft response boat and trying to get qualified as a boatcrew member. I always tell people that I get to learn more for the Coast Guard than for college. It is a LOT of information and skills to get internalized!

Then came Spring term, and it almost broke me. Murphy's law is very real! My life got pulled in several different highly consequential directions all at once, for months on end, and keeping everything together took a toll. Fortunately, I made it out the other side, and although I've got some bumps and bruises to show for it, they'll make good stories!

The last picture here was taken about 30 minutes before an incredibly dangerous swim that left me feeling lucky to be alive, and harshly aware of how small I really am. Water safety is a constant theme on this page, but this incident cemented it in my mind permanently, especially around the ocean where hydraulic forces are super human. Nothing like a little mortality to shake things up!

College is awesome. It is an incredible opportunity and I'm trying to make the absolute most of it. I owe a huge thank you to all the folks who made this year awesome, but especially @rjcross314 and @kaleb_eakins for having my back when I needed it most. I'm looking forward to round 4 in the fall! 🤙🔥💪

#learning #diving #college #fun #adventure taken in Oregon State University by @mtbfast001

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4 months ago

Cave exploration with some buddies. Undisclosed time and location.

#spelunking #caving #fun #exploration #safety taken in [Redacted] by @mtbfast001

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5 months ago

I'm not one for convention, and that definitely applies to my diving!

The recreational open circuit scuba system hasn't changed much in decades, and that bothers me. Conventional scuba equipment works, but it's heavy, expensive, difficult to customize, unbalanced in the water, and limited to a very narrow use case.

Over the past few years my dive buddy @rjcross314 and I have rebelled against the norm, and designed a ton of custom made gear, purpose built for our maritime adventures! We borrow heavily from military divers since their environment forces innovation, and that can be seen in what we've created.

These are our main projects so far in chronological order:
1: The navigation board
2: CNSR MOD 1 compact modular BCD
3: Diving helmets
4: Surface swimmer chest rig
5: Chest rig light holder
6: The diver propulsion vehicle
7: CNSR MOD 2

We've also taken to diving with clothes over our wetsuits, both for abrasion resistance and the pockets. Additionally, almost all our gear is designed to integrate with rappelling equipment and everything except the DPV can be jumped with (~30ft).

These innovations make our time in the cold, dark, low visibility waters of Oregon a lot more safe and enjoyable, plus they provide fun engineering challenges!

I'm sure we're not done building things, but I figured I'd share some of our projects so far. There's always room for improvement, and we will continue to find ways to sharpen our craft!

More to come... @daggersndivemasks

#diving
#innovation
#unconventional #design #engineering by @mtbfast001

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5 months ago