Sinks of the Roundstone.... Long time no see...

I must say, it was nice not being the leader of a caving trip, for a change.  I didn't have the responsibility to worry about.  The occasion was Jason and Tina's birthday.  Drew decided to do a small caving trip.  It was just to this "boring" easy cave, but it was still a fun time.

                                  (Looking back towards the main entrance)
When we reached what some of them call the "Prayer Room" we sat in there and the rest of the group sang some songs.  I just sort of sat there in the dark.  Two side passage branch off this room.  Jason and I went to the left to a windy canyon section, and everyone else went right.  Jason and I wound our way through until we eventually got to a dry section.  It began stooping, and then there was a tight crawl ahead.  I slithered in first and pretty quickly I took off my helmet.

                                     (Looking ahead to the squeeze)
I kept going, forcing my way through, enjoying the constricting passage.  Jason followed behind me.  Eventually I worked my way through a really tight spot and then discovered my shoulders are too big.  I tried going a little farther but then realized I was stuck.  So, after a couple minutes of working back and forth I began inching my way back out of the passage, enjoying the feeling of an intense wedgie and my shirt being forced up to my neck.

                              (Looking back at Jason)
Jason and I went back to the "Prayer Room" and then went in the right passage.  A little ways in we chimneyed and wedged ourself up a V shaped crack to reach and upper level passage so I could show him   As we were sliding and wedging ourself back down the slipper V Jon and Jordan found us.  The rest of the group went ahead through a bypass and were on their way out (for those of you that worry, don't.  3/4 of our group , myself included, know this cave so splitting up isn't a problem.  Most of us could do our own thing).

We all picked our way out and then went out the back entrance near the railroad.  Then we decided to go through the tunnel and find the third major entrance to Sinks of the Roundstone.  It's an entrance used for flood water.  After some hiking and sliding down a steep slope we located it.  It's definately an exploration for another day which will require getting wet and muddy!

                             (2 1/2 foot diameter log that we found washed inside)
Overall it was a good caving trip.  We changed and drove back to Berea.  The rest of the gang went and got together for spaghetti... I followed was sedentary and came back home to eat Top Ramen...

                                                 (Drew, no he hurt his arm before caving, not during!)

Indiana Cave Capers

Thursday evening my cousin Erik came up from Tennessee and we got ready to go to South-Central Indiana for their annual Cave Capers convention.  I was looking forward to getting underground!  We left Kentucky late Friday morning and endured the boring endless cornfields of Indiana.  They seemed to never end.  But finally we arrived at Camp Rivervale, where the convention was taking place this year.

                                    (Our chicken noodle slop we had for dinner)
Nothing much was going on Friday evening so we set up camp, cooked dinner, and relaxed until we finally fell asleep.  It was a nice cool night and the moon was out.  There was a small point near our campsite where we could see the West fork of the White River down below.

The next morning we got up and ate a poptart and then went to the registration tent.  After reading through our guidebook we decided we wanted to go to Wayne Cave.  Wayne cave has about 4.25 miles of known passage at this point.  It is owned by the IKC (Indiana Karst Conservancy).  It was a locked cave, meaning it had a gate on it.  To our surprised no one else was interested in going to this cave so Erik and I signed our waivers (required for this particular cave), got the key, and headed out.

We got stuck at the first gate to actually drive onto the property because the combination they gave us was wrong.  Our new wonderful Aunt Amy worked very hard to get us the phone numbers of some people in charge of Cave Capers and we were finally able to just park outside the gate near the road and hike onto the property.   Then after a hike down into a sinkhole we came to the cave entrance.

                                  (Entrance to Wayne Cave)
Wayne Cave's entrance are two consecutive pits.  The total drop between both of them is 22 feet.  It's fairly easy to free climb.  So Erik and I both came down and then decided it would probably be best to close the gate in the chance that somebody who wasn't supposed to come along got in.  However, I checked and made sure I could lift the heavy gate open.  I could.

So we climbed down the two pits and soon we came to the famous part of the cave.  A 1/4 mile crawlway.  It takes about 1 hour of crawling to get through.  Some places had enough room to be on hands and knees.  Other places you took your helmet off to get through.

                                  (Stalactite Squeeze, looking back)
On and on we crawled.  Occasionally we passed some pretty formations hanging down around us in the crawlway.

Finally we came out of the crawl and were faced with a large canyon running perpendicular to the crawl passage.  After taking a break and consulting our map we deduced we were at camp 1.  We decided to try and reach camp II (There was also a camp III farther on.  It started to sound like climbing Everest).  After traversing an old stream bed for a while and seeing some more great formations....

we came to a tricky area that is a Tri-level canyon.  We wound our way through this trying to find our way to Camp II.  We even climbed down to the lowest level of the canyon.  It was only on the way back that when we finally realized how to get out we discovered how hard that climb was.  It was the scariest climb I've ever faced in a cave and was almost certain I was going to fall.  But Erik and I both made it up safely.  It also didn't help we were pretty fatigued at this point.  Especially since we'd only ate a pop tart for breakfast.  Not exactly carb rich food you need for caving.

By this point we were stumbling out... We were ready to be done.  But we still had that 1/4 mile long crawl ahead of us.  It was agony, and it seemed to take forever.  But we finally did it.  We quickly devoured all the granola bars we had packed along with us.  Rested, and then did the first climb up.  We could now see daylight!  So up the last pit I climbed and wedged myself into position to push up the gate only to discover......

I could hardly budge the gate!  I was so tired and fatigued that I couldn't push open the heavy iron gate.  So Erik squirmed his way up beside me and on the count of three we used our helmeted heads and put all our effort into swinging the gate upward and escaping the cave.  And at that moment Erik slipped sliding downward a couple feet.  His helmet snagged and his mag-light mounted on the side snapped off falling to the bottom of the pit.  He left it there however, believing it not worth the climb back down and up to retrieve it.

So we locked the cave back up and rested for about 10 minutes before hiking back to the car to change.

It was definitely a great experience and fun caving in my third state!

Arthur Singleton's Cave

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting to go caving again this summer, it finally happened!  A group of us from the Creation Museum, and a couple others came along: Kyle and Amanda, Matt and Amy, myself, Jimmy Rice, Katelyn Ketron, and then David Intal all finally got together as we traveled south.  Finally arriving at the parking for the cave I could hardly wait to get down and dirty in the cave.  So our group ate lunch, and then we headed in!

                         (Entrance to Arthur Singleton's Cave)
When we entered we were in a small room with some formations almost immediately.  To our right stretched the main section of the cave.  It was a crawling/stooping over rim stone pools, flowstone, and stalactites and stalagmites.

Kyle, Amanda, and Amy I guess were surprised by this being some of the easiest caving you can do.  But they did a really good job sticking with the crawling and continuing on, even though it wasn't their favorite thing to do.  I was impressed :)

After that section of crawling was over we arrived in a long passageway we could walk along.  Formations decorated the passage everywhere!

                                    (Jimmy, David, and Katelyn)
We followed this passage for a ways, missing the side passage which leads to the huge Empire Room.  Instead, after some ducking and weaving, we arrived at a cross passage where a small stream system flows.  While the group rested I checked out the cross section and decided this was the main water route when flooding occurs.  And correctly lined this up with the passage that leads to a siphon on the map.  There was a lot of organic debris that confirmed this.

So I rejoined the group and then most of us were in the group picture we took.

                                            (Josh, David, Jimmy, Amanda, Amy, Katelyn)
Then I decided that we would go back out to the main entrance.  I figured Amanda and Amy had pushed themselves enough.  So we all made our way back out.  Kyle joined them, and Katelyn couldn't stay with us guys to go one an adventure (she looked like a sad, dejected puppy because of that).

                                          (On the way out...)
Then us guys went up the left side to find the domes that were on the map.  We ended up going up what is called "One legged passage.  Crawling and crouching through gravel until we reached what is called Nadine's Bathtub".

                                        (On the way we ran into a fellow cave dweller)

                                      (Matt, in "One Legged Passage")
Jimmy was out in front and he plunged into Nadine's Bathtub first.  When he reached the other side and slithered out of the water we heard him exclaiming how beautiful it was up ahead and we had to follow!  So one by one we all took our turn going through the muddy bathtub.  When we came out we were faced with a couple domes.  Water trickled from the ceilings, and there was nice flowstone coming down the sides!  It was incredible!

(Matt, looking up in one of the domes)

David, Jimmy, and I climbed up some flowstone and got a nice vantage point from inside one of the domes.  After looking around, however, it was time to go.  So we all huddled near the entrance to Nadine's Bathtub, had a powwow, and then I went first.

                                      (Entrance to Nadine's Bathtub)

                                      (David, coming through the bathtub)
We took another couple minutes once all of us were through the bathtub, and then we made our way out of the cave and got changed.  Then it was time to leave and head back home :(

                                     (The fearless men: Matt, Josh, Jimmy, and David)

For all my photos from the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/jholcomb8/20110802ArthurSingletonSCaveAugust22011