Introduction to Caving

We started the day by going on the Introduction to Caving tour. This tour was crawling, sliding, pulling your way through the cave. Mom, Dad, Jared, Megan and I went on this tour. Lance, Lindsey, Reuben and the kids stayed behind at the campgrounds.There were 15 total people in our group. I wish I had pictures to show, but this was not the kind of experience that you could stop for a picture opportunity. First they took us to a dorm to change into jumpsuits. We all wore jumpsuits, gloves, boots and a hard hat with a light. Then we headed to the cave. We went in through the New Entrance opening and down to the "test" area. We crawled through a tight area to make sure we could handle the rest of the tour. (And also check to see if we would "fit" through.) Then we continued on to the rest of the tour.

Kath, the tour guide, asked Jared to be at the end. So we got to talk to the guide that trailed our group. Her name was Stephanie. She was great. She took the time to talk to us and tell us about the cave and the animals that live there. We stopped to look at a puddle that had an insect that looked like a grain of sand swimming. She said that it was very rare to see that. Sometimes we would look back and she would be gone and then pop back up in the front of the group. One section of cave she helped each of us climb down a difficult section. Jared asked if she was coming along behind us. She said,"No, I think I'll take a nap and catch up later". A little later she was back in the front helping us get through another portion of the cave. When we got back up to her we said this looks a little too familiar. We basically went in a circle crawling and climbing over rocks. She said she only moved 3 feet. We climbed up over large rocks, squeezed through a small hole and then slid down rocks on the other side. We got to a section of cave that was tall enough for us to sit up and talk for a few minutes. The tour guide asked if we noticed we had been moving in a circle. We were the only ones that notice. Then we moved on. Next we came to the wet part of the cave. We had to step into the large puddle and then pull ourselves up to a hole that was hip high. To get through the hole we had to turn our head sideways, reach through and grab rocks on the other side to help pull ourselves through. Once we got through the hole you were on your belly face down in more puddles. Then we were able to stand bent over at the waist. We came out at the Frozen Niagara that we had seen the day before.
This tour was so much fun. The said they have another tour called the Wild Cave Tour. What we did in 2 hours they would do in the first 20 minutes. It would be much harder and longer. That tour was scheduled for 6 hours.

Like I said before, I wish we had pictures to show everyone. The only thing I had to show for it was a scrape on my elbow, a bruise on my butt and a sore back. But it was so worth it to have this experience.