Monday, March 12, 2007

Adventures in the Dark



I went spelunking for the first time yesterday. My friend Eric and I planned to spend a good part of the day just exploring around inside of Spirit Mountain Cave. We arrived at the mountain at 10:00 a.m.. After packing our back pack, checking our lights, and making a few last phone calls, we started down the path that led to the mouth of the cave. It is early March and there is still a considerable amount of snow on the ground near the cave, so we have to carefully hike our way down the trail so as not to fall off the edge to a horrible death. We reach the giant hole and to our dismay the "gate" that was blocking the entrance was of massive proportions. Steel seemed to make a tremendous seal around the mouth of the cave. Although we had the key to get in we still could not find a lock or a key hole. After a moment of searching around we found the lock on the backside of a small 2'x2' opening in the massive steel structure. We squeeze our way into the hole and stepped into an enormous Cathedral room. The ceiling had to be at least 60 ft high and it was breathtaking, literally it was breathtaking. The immense amount of dust inside the cave was so thick it was like trying to breath while lying face down in the dirt. As we traveled down the first corridor we escaped the daylight and had to turn on our flashlights. The darkness was indescribable, close your eyes and try to see...that's how dark it is in there. We traveled further only to find that the path ended and dropped straight down about 40 ft. We did not want to risk any injuries so we decided to try another path. There happened to be a marked path heading into the core of the labyrinth. We entered another room that seemed to be a dead end, but with further exploration we found an exit underneath a large boulder and we slithered through a tiny crevice to find a gaping hole that dropped another 30 some odd ft down. We tied our rope off to a large rock and dropped down through another tight slit in the footing of the cave. Once at the bottom of our rope we discovered another quite large room and decided to take a water break. We searched around and found a pipe leading even further down and pressed on. After an exhilarating hike/climb down about 100 ft there was another long descent straight down. Only this time we had to use the rock face to scale down to the bottom. This once again opened into a room of substantial size. Further exploration gave way to an endless tunnel that we crawled what seemed like miles, but was only a couple hundred feet, and decided to start our ascent back to the daylight. The only way back out of the tunnel was up a slick rock face and under a rock which made for a very tight squeeze. All in all we had a blast and can't wait to do it again.












How do you give a lemon an orgasm?.....tickle its "citrus"