Skylight Dome

Well this caving trip to Pine Hill was a very enjoyable trip.  We avoided having to crawl on our bellies through freezing water.  Brandon and I had missed the midsection bypass, but we found it.  It made us thrilled! 

When we reached the section to climb to the upper level in order to reach the skylight dome, we entered new territory.  A couple times we discovered we traveled in a circle on the upper level.  And in another instance we were on a small ledge holding on as our wet shoes slid on the steep clay bank that led to a 40 foot drop into the passage below.  Needless to say, we'll never go that route again.  But after searching we got our bearings and the directions we had began to match what we were seeing.  So we found the correct (and pretty much safe) way to get to the skylight dome.

Very soon we found ourselves at the mouth of the birth canal.  I don't know who gave it that name, but somebody thought the small passage we crawl through looks like a birth canal, so the name has stuck.

                                       (Me crawling through the birth canal)
We reached the end of the passage and it opened up.  Before us was the skylight dome!  We were thrilled.  We climbed down to the bottom and gazed upward.  It was incredible.  Sometime we are going to go during the day so we can see the brilliant shaft of sunlight steaming down 120 feet to the bottom.

                                           (A bottom view of the walls)

                                      (Brandon and I sitting in the bottom of the skylight dome)
We poked around a little and then discovered there was life in the bottom of the dome.  There is a small amount of water and we found a few frogs, a salamander, and a blind crayfish.

                                          (Brandon holding one of the frogs he caught)
After our time in the skylight was done, we climbed back up and exited back to the main passage.  We were going back to the main fork to go on the right passage to try and find the tower domes.

                                          (Me, as I'm getting ready to lead the way back through the birth canal)
We searched and searched the right passage, but could not find what the directions were supposed to describe.  So we ended up not finding the tower domes but instead just did some exploring.  It was still fun, though.  It always is.  However, on the way out of the right passage Brandon found what we are almost 100% sure is the passage to the tower domes.  So that will be our priority next week.

          (Brandon took this picture, accidentally getting his finger in the way.  I think it looks pretty cool)
But anyway, it was a good trip.  And yeah, my back is now in pain because I had pulled or twisted it a couple weeks ago and caving made it really bad, but it was worth it. :D

Weekly caving...

So Thursday was our weekly caving excursion.  I got a few pictures...

                                 (This is Mason as he tries to get across without falling into the deep pool)

                                  (Brandon looking up to the top of the rain dome)

     (These are some pictures of the walls inside the rain dome.  They are sheer and smooth like this all the way up)

                             (This is Roddy and one of our supervisors, Elgin).

Some one finally did fall into the deep pool.  It was Roddy. :D

Caving

Well, Thursday night was an intense night of caving. Brandon, me, one of our supervisors, and Ivan went to Pine Hill Cave.  We went straight in and began going down the main passage, following the water.  Soon came the crawl.  Since Brandon and I, and our supervisor knew what to expect, the cold water wasn't as bad of a shock to us.  But it still was pretty cold.  It was a race to get through the first part, climb up out of the water on dry ground and rest.

                                    (Ivan, still shocked by the cold water)
The second half was more hands and knees, and then stooping.  However, along the way we found a very narrow side passage where water flowed out of.  We decided to investigate.  I went first and slowly worked my way in.  It was very tight and took a lot of shifting, flexing, and in some places climbing and crouching.

Finally we reached a  point where the stream went upward, however the bottom passage was too small so we climbed up and eventually made it to an upper level.  Up on this level is where we saw some beautiful pools.

Anyway, we poked around, found a pretty impressive room, and then squeezed back out into the main passage and continued on.  After a while we came to another side passage and we decided to see where it went.  It was tight in some places, and narrow.  You could also climb 10-15 feet up in the crack and walk along the top.  In some places it was easier to do it that way.  You just had to make sure you had good footing.

                                      (Brandon, below me)
We eventually reached a point where it was like a natural stair case of calcium.  Level by level we crawled up on top of it, and through the trickle of water that ran down.  When we reached the top we entered what we later found out was the Fountain Room.  I got a photo of a pool in the room that I really like.

I like the way I was able to capture all of the ripples as water dripped down into the pool.

We entered a crawl continuing on out of the Fountain Room.  We decided to turn around and go back, although I believe it eventually rejoins the main passage.

When we reached the main passage again we decided to make a shoot for the waterfalls, and then go back out of the cave.  We continued on, through some thigh deep water in places and soon got to the portion of the cave that was just solid rock.  This is where we began seeing the waterfalls.

It was also at this point that I began to run into a problem.  The inside of my camera was building up moisture from the humidity.  There was moisture on the inside of the lens.  So at this point my pictures began appearing fuzzy.  I had kept it in a ziplock bag during the trip, but the cave was very humid.

We finally got to the dreaded point.  We walked along a rock wall and held onto handholds with a deep pool beside us.  The hardest point was a large gap we had to span.  It required us to put our right hand in a handhold which was like a milk jug handle in the rock.  We then swung around and used out left hand to grab the wall on the other side of the water.  We then climbed up the biggest waterfall. 

 (Brandon, having made it to the waterfall.  You can see the "milk jug" handle that we use to swing ourselves over.)


When we got past the big falls we continued on to where we decided last time we were here, to stop.  Our reasoning last time was that it probably dead ended and got narrow (which it does eventually).  However, we decided to keep going a little bit.  And no joke, but ten feet from where we stopped last time it suddenly opened into a large dome.  It is probably around 75 feet tall (not the tallest ones in the cave system).  We found it hard to believe that we had stopped just short of this last time.

We decided this would be a good place to officially end our exploration and then proceed back out the cave.  Getting down the waterfall and swinging across was trickier coming down, but nobody fell in.  So far, nobody has fell in on our trips.  However, we are hoping that will change when we go caving with Mason (a fellow grounds worker) next Thursday.

When we reached the last part of the crawl we slid into the water and used all of our strength to propel ourselves through and get out on the other end.  It was literally a race to get out of it.  But we made it out safely and are going to explore more of the cave next week.  In fact, Brandon discovered on Youtube some people had taken high powered lights and cameras into the cave last week and had uploaded some videos onto youtube.  If you would like to see them, here they are.  There are two parts. We have not seen everything in these videos yet, but we have seen the Register Room, the Fountain Room, and the Waterfall.

Part 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJJvczUjH6o
Part 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_On6yTfyH6A&feature=related

Anyway, I contacted the guy that made this video and he is kindly sending me a very much more detailed and accurate map of the cave system!!!!

And to see all of the photos from our trip, go to this link to view my Picasa web album: http://picasaweb.google.com/jholcomb8/Caving5?authkey=Gv1sRgCPfknsTRwLP7GA#

Until next time, this is the cave addict saying adios!