Hurricane Pit Entrance... So Close, yet so far...

This morning I awoke, and came down to Berea where I filled up on gas (which was 20 cents cheaper than in Richmond) and then picked up Lydia at the campus.  Then we headed down to Pine Hill Cave.  We were meeting a younger guy from the Cincinnati grotto named Chris, and he was bringing some friends.

We made pretty good time going in.  Folowing the stream in and then up to the upper level where we went to the skylight dome.  Some of Chris's friends hadn't seen it.

                          (Entrance to the Birth Canal, leading to the skylight dome)

We sat around in the dome for a while and found a huge frog in the pool.  We also found a small baby snake... Somehow these animals manage to fall in and survive the 125 foot fall.  It's unbelievable.  After that we made our way back out and then proceeded down Shaffer Trail.  This is a long "stereotypical" cave passage.  At the end of it is a narrow slot canyon which we eventually climb to the top of and pop around a corner.  This brings us in the vicinity of the Art Room, which we did visit later.  But our top priority was the Hurricane Pit Entrance.  I had studied the map and based on my experience in the cave I had a hunch where to look.  We climbed down into a pit and then climbed up the other side.  Sure enough we found the passage that the entrance branched off of.

                                       (Crooked soda straw hanging from the ceiling)
Pretty soon we came to a very small, and tight crawl.  After a while it opened up and it became apparant it was a maze.  There were 2 or 3 levels in this narrow canyon.  I went up ahead and found what is called Tom's Attic, and a high dome at the very end of the passage.

I turned around and came back.  The others had been poking around exploring the passage.  We realized we weren't going to find the Hurricane Pit Entrance... It would take a full day to locate it, unless we were lucky.  So instead we found places to climb up on top to the third upper level.  And there were some really pretty formations up there.

After exploring some more in the upper level we crawled back out, and then went to the Art Room momentarily so the rest of the group could see the pillars and other formations in there.  Then we made the long journey back out.  It was a great trip...  Even after a long caving trip with people you don't know, by the end there is a sense of bonding and you all enjoy your time together!

For the rest of the pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/116396676277007122980/20110910PineHillSeptember102011