Brandon came back this morning and we geared up. We first drove into walmart and got some things to eat for lunch, some spare batteries, and glow sticks. Then we went south. We found the turn off to park and then we easily found Pine Hill Cave. This is us in front of the entrance.
We entered the cave and worked our way along using the map. It's a really interesting cave system. Our going was pretty good for a while following the map. But then we began to get confused with a bypass section, and different routes (we found out later on in the day that it's because there was a cave in a while back) During our time believing we were on the right path we began crawling.
(Brandon crawling through some water)
We eventually stopped and ate lunch.
(Our cave lunch)
We worked our way back out and marked one path with a glow stick so we can see it hanging over a water passage to possibly go down it. It will be done glowing, but we should see it hanging there. We got out of the cave and then were disappointed that we weren't able to make it to the skylight dome. The skylight dome is a hole in the ground and it's 125 feet up from the cave floor. Here is a photo of it that I didn't take, but I found on the internet. Someday I will get my own photo of it.
So then we decided to try hiking in the general direction outside the cave to reach it so we could look in. On the way searching we found a turtle just out in the middle of the woods.
We were unsuccessful in finding it so we eventually went back to the truck. We decided to go to the local gas station and ask if they knew, but there weren't any help. Well we didn't know what to do. So I said we should go up to sinks of the roundstone cave (the one we've normally went to). So we drove up there. However, as we were almost to the pull off we saw a guy with a horse on a small turnoff next to the road.. It was right over a bridge over the creek that eventually flows into Roundstone. So we asked him if there were any other caves around besides Roundstone. Brandon said he had heard of one right across the road from Roundstone that not a lot of people know about. So we asked him. And he replied with a "Yeah, there's a cave right behind you." We went up and looked. Below the water came out of a cave entrance. It was completely submered.
This water comes out of Pine Hill Cave, and emerges here. Then it flows for maybe a mile before it goes into Sinks of the Roundstone. I forget where it emerges after Roundstone.
Anyway, we were disppointed as we couldn't enter here. However, we climb up above on the cliff and discovered a very tight passage. The guy did say it was around 200 feet of tight crawling before it started to open up. This is what we saw.
Well we decided to go up to the parking area for Roundstone so we could get cell phone service. When we pulled up there were two vans and a large group of people. And I was shocked at who was there. I saw Jacob there! He stared at me, then realized who I was and ran over to meet us. Brian and Ben were also there. Brandon and I were shocked to see them. It turned out that they were doing cave training in Roundstone. They do that some for their summer job (confrontation point ministries). We got a chance to visit before they took off to go through the cave again. Well Brandon and I went across the road to find this other cave. And we found this little hole. We crawled into it a bit, saw that it was a tight crawl after about 15 feet and we came out.
Well we turned around and then went back to the blue hole and climbed through the very very very tight squeeze. Eventually it opened up enough to allow us to crawl on our knees. We continued on to the point where we were able to walk straight in a few places, or walk stooped over. However, soon we came to a pit entrance. We said if we had rope we could lower ourself down. It dropped into a large cavern.
We continued on and the passage dropped down into the large cave passage. We were able to climb down and it was pretty huge. Easy walking in gravel and water flowed. Walking along we soon found this hole that we saw earlier. It dropped down into the same passage. The guy told us that eventually this somehow connects with Pine Hill Cave. So the water that was flowing by us eventually came out right below where we entered the cave.
We reached a point where it was sort of deep water and we decided to turn around. So we made the long trip back and crawled our way out. We were tired, weak, and hungry. We made it back to the truck and we decided to go back to the parking area for Roundstone just to see if the CP group was still there. A couple of them were, one of them being Brian. The rest were still inside the cave. But we sat down and talked with Brian a little bit. He told us about the cave in in Pine Hill, and that small cave we found across the road is actually something bigger. So we will have to crawl down that tube sometime.
Well we said by to Brian (not waiting to see Ben and Jacob again) and took off. It was a great day. By far the best caving time I've had yet, expect for Virgin Falls cave. However, with all the steps to preparing we forgot to bring a chance of clothes.
Here is a link to my Picasa web album to see all of the photos from our caving today.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jholcomb8/Caving4?authkey=Gv1sRgCPr1q8rl3fnDYw#
I enjoyed looking at the pictures. However, you still would not get your mother into those caves.
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