- Black Lake Cave — couldn't find it!
- Meander Cave — as the name suggests, lots of meandering and stemming.
- 123 Cave — lots of crawling, lots of water.
We spent Saturday caving with a small crew of 7 — Carl (organizer), Matt, Nick, Ethan, Sri, Philip (first trip!) and I. This was the smallest group I've ever caved with, and I had a good feeling about the cave despite knowing very little. In fact, the first thing I learned was that Carl intended for us to do three caves. As luck would have it, we couldn't find Cave 1 and so settled for two. Meander Cave and 123 Cave were very different from each other and so made for fantastic beginner caves for Philip. He got to experience some great stemming and crawling and was a natural. Overall a comfortable trip as I had met everyone at least once before, and we got to spend time at the lake afterward. Bonus: Miner the dog!
Getting there
We started driving at around 8 PM and made it to the trailhead around 2 AM. Plenty of potholes and rocks, but manageable. Camped nearby and got around 3.5 hours of sleep in the end. Started walking a flat trail around 8 AM, playing with Miner the dog. She's the cutest ¾ border collie mix with the energy of 4 border collies on steroids. We played a LOT of fetch.
Unable to find Black Lake Cave
We encountered some wonderful karsty rock near Cave 1: Black Lake Cave. Carl said there was a slippery mud chute that we needed to avoid slipping on, as it led directly into the water and was supposedly hard to get out of. Fortunately or unfortunately, we were met by dead ends and couldn't find the cave entrance. As we hiked on, we played more fetch with Miner. Philip walked ahead of me and threw the stick forward, and as I watched the stick, I saw an old man with a helmet peeking around a tree watching us. He was wearing bright orange, so he wasn't hiding too well. Cavers have a tendency to hide from hikers, even going to the extent of covering up their bags and gear at cave entrances so that they don't follow. But this felt like an NPC encounter. We clocked each other as cavers, and it turned out he was Roger, a veteran caver that my group knew well. Small world. He was organizing a rescue practice, and had been waiting hours for his group. The scenario involved a person with a broken leg in a cave, and we graciously offered to contribute 7 more people with broken legs for the practice.
Meander Cave
This cave reminded me a bit of Crystal Cave in terms of style — lots of stemming between two walls.
At the entrance, we encountered Roger's "lost person" just hanging out. After a quick chat, our group of seven continued ahead but as I stepped forward, Carl said, "Hey Grace, you wanna check that out?" He pointed to a hole at the side and claimed it connected to the main route, then continued forward. And so I turned around and crawled into the hole and poked a bit, but was unable to connect and reunite with the rest of the group, and had to backtrack to catch up. The next section perfectly described the name of the cave. It was a narrow, person-width meander between two wiggly walls. At some point, we had to descend a steep slanted slope with a bit of water running down. And then climb back up it on the way back. There was some beautiful black and white banded marble though.
Then we encountered more areas that required some stemming between walls. At the last section, I opted to follow Matt and instead of stemming down the walls with butt against one wall and boots against the other, slid down a chute to the floor "like a turd." I do feel safer with this strategy compared to facing the gap and a potential fall to the bottom. Up ahead we received news that if we really wanted, we could continue through a squeeze that required some sideways shimmying, and as Nick discovered, led to a dead end with a rat covered in mold. All of us decided against it, and turned around.
We started on our way back, and saw there was a way to exit early, so Philip and Carl decided to take it. Carl and Matt joked that things would go wrong (or go right) as soon as Carl left, and perfectly jinxed us. Within a minute I immediately lost my footing while balancing/half-stemming against a wall, and banged up my limbs a little bit. While I remarked that thankfully I wasn't over a deeper gap, I slipped again and hit the back of my head. Unfortunately it was on the adjustable knob section of my helmet, and not the protective shell. With that we all decided to follow Philip and Carl out instead of backtracking to our original entrance, as I'd had enough.
123 Cave
We hiked a short distance to the location of the final cave and feasted as Carl introduced more Croatian caving culture with us by sharing salami and cheese. Besides that, lunch was relatively quiet as we were pretty tired. After some more fetch and binging more nerd clusters, we proceeded to the cave entrance.
I had no idea what 123 Cave entailed besides being hinted that there was a surprise. He did tell us there was a squeeze near the end, so it kind of sucks to get toward the end and be unable to continue through. Carl told us to go search for the entrance. I went first and scrambled around, but none of us were able to find it. We did find some nasty looking holes with water, and a ridiculous amount of bugs flying around. I prayed that we didn't have to crawl through that stagnant water, and was so happy someone else found the true entrance. Philip noted a hole near the entrance we didn't explore, and it was a squeeze located head-height. Carl reminded us that blowing air was a tell-tale sign of a more extensive cave.
We continued on, through a small crawl tunnel with puddles of water. I managed to get through on my feet and avoid getting wet. That was all useless work, as the next tunnel had maybe 8" to a foot of water at its deepest, and you had to crawl through. As Matt crawled through, "did you know some caves have hot springs? The water is nice and warm!" I wished it wasn't bs, as we followed and my shoes and shins were promptly submerged in frigid water. Luckily knee pads kept my knees warm.
Crawling forward with wet socks, we encountered multiple "squeezes," which actually were not too bad. They weren't tunnels but rather areas where rocks temporarily narrowed into a hole or slit, and you didn't need to continuously wriggle through. However, a sideways slit proved to be a bit challenging as my hip would get lodged and I'd need to rotate around and push through. I found that squeezes against the ground would hurt if there was sharp rock, but squeezes at head-level were hard in that there was no leverage or ground to push your feet against. We found a room full of vibrant pink rock (upon later research, possibly granite with alkali feldspar with iron impurities). After a few more squeezes, we scrambled up and through a small triangular exit to the sunlight.
I still don't know why it's called 123 Cave.
Twin Lakes
There aren't actually two lakes; but we had a great time getting our feet wet and drying stuff off. I waded around but only up to my knees, stepping through the muddy bank. Very picturesque lake. There was a large rock in the middle of the lake that the others swam out to and jumped off of. Played fetch with Miner, who still had infinite energy. This time we tossed the stick into the water and she dutifully swam after it. I observed giant blue dragonflies and attempted to take a brief nap on a rock by the water, though only managed to get seared by the sun. TMI — after walking in the water I did find a tiny orange worm or leech thing stuck to my toe, which I pulled off easily. I see why one of the guys brought water shoes.
Hiking back, I learned a good chunk of our group were electrical engineers, which I found quite funny. What's the connection between caving and EE? One of the guys wanted to know how the FCC decided on RF safety limits, and Nick regaled us with a tale an old 80-year-old RF engineer told him, which he told us to take with a grain of salt. Apparently in the 1950s, they took a group of chimpanzees, put them in a room with a large antenna and turned up the energy until they moved to the other side of the room. Then proclaimed that 10% of the energy was the limit for human safety; the end. It does seem like something folks in the fifties would do. We talked about how being blasted with RF energy heats you up like a microwave, but doesn't cause cancer or anything. Carl contributed a story about how a guy up in Alaska or wherever worked at some research facility with a giant antenna, and he got into the habit of sitting in front of it to warm himself up in the cold (I would 100% do the same). After a number of years, one day someone remotely decided to run an experiment, blasted the energy, and people later found the guy's body in front of the antenna. Possibly the first microwaved human (that we know of).