Trip to Pine Hill Cave, with snow!

Well today was the first time I'd ever went caving when there was snow on the ground outside.  When we arrived at the cave, we stashed our change of clothes near the entrance.  It was really cold.  In the entrance of the cave there were some really cool ice formations and big ice stalactites.  However, when we went a little ways into the cave it began to get pretty warm.  Even the water was much warmer than the outside air temperature.

                                      (Ice formations near the entrance)

We made our way along, I was being more careful to not move too fast, and I took more breaks for some people so that no injuries occurred.  Most everyone checked out a small side passage real quick, and then we continued on to the skylight dome.

                                     (My cousin Erik, after we left the midsection bypass)

The rest of the trip went pretty good.  We made good time getting to the "Birth Canal"  And I really enjoyed the caribeaners I got for Christmas. I was able to clip one to a loop on my shoe and drag my backpack behind me.  It was so much easier than having to push it ahead of me.  One by one we all made it out of the passage and came into the Skylight Dome.

                                      (Megan, coming out into the skylight dome)
We took a break when we were in the dome, turned out our lights and admired the sunlight coming down.  And then we refreshed with some crackers and Gatorade.  Going out, the pack was much lighter.

                                   (Refreshing in the Skylight Dome)

When we were done we headed on out.  We were running behind on time, but I made the decision to not rush out as I didn't want anyone getting hurt.  That would have made things worse.  But we all made it out okay.  The interesting part was changing.  It was still really cold near the front of the cave.  We split up, and quickly put on dry clothes before heading back to the cars.  One of the guys that came along, Blaine, ran ahead and so he wasn't in the group picture.

                                  (Mark, Erik, Daniel, Alexas, & Megan)

The full link to all of the pictures is here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jholcomb8/PineHillJanuary# It was a pretty awesome trip, and it was really nice to get to go caving again.  I really appreciated my helmet I got for Christmas.  It seemed that I was bumping my head a lot since I got it.

Until next time, the caving addict! :D