Caving

JamesTX said:
Back in college I had a buddy that was into spelunking. So, one weekend I went with him to a cave out in West Texas. Started out as a crack in the ground that we had to rappel down a few hundred feet. At the bottom were a bunch of bones from the animals that had fallen in. Then we started walking back - had to wear a wet suit becasue there was a creek that we were walking through. The scariest part was a place where you had to put your back against one wall and your feet against the other and inch over a spot where the floor fell away. After a few more rappels we got to the end where the creek disappeared into a sinkhole. THe trip was great, but I sure was glad to have some experienced guys there.

Later, we went to a couple small caves, including one where I stuck my foot into a small hole. Immediately, I was surrounded by hundreds of bats; wings brushing my face.

I don't think I'd ever have the nerve to do an exploration where they were tryng to open up a new cave.
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Man, I love that wack shit. I need a cave! :whine:
 
I worked in an Opal mine like this one for a while once when I had no tree work. 30" shaft, ladder down 70ft, then crawl to the work spot.

I don't go anywhere I can't see the sky now. :)

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Yes, by hand back then. When you found what you thought was any good you put it in a bucket, dragged it back to the shaft winched it up and later sifted thru it. [I forget the lingo for it all at the moment]

No pay, just what you found. You could lease mines then. It's all big business there now. The old mines like that were pretty dangerous, you could dig thru into another one and it could collapse, or worse someone could be in there. You would not come out, a lot of guys disapeared up there. Still do from what I've heard. 8)
 
When I was at school I had went a bunch of times with a caving club. The nice thing about the club was that they were able to get permission to get on to a lot of private land. My favorite time was when we were in Southern Missouri. The natural creations were simply amazing, it was the first time I had ever seen anything like that.

The last time I went caving will most likely stay my last. It got a little too crazy for me. The ceiling just kept getting lower and lower to where we eventually were on our stomach trying to crawl through a crack. There was a couple inches of water so you had to turn your head towards the ceiling to suck air. That was the first time I ever had felt claustrophobic and it did freak me out. I think I'll just stay on top of the land now :)

TreeReb, those mines look pretty crazy!
 
I was just in Austin, TX and hit up a few caves. One at Enchanted Rock State Park was pretty cool, you can enter in one end and come out the other about 30 minutes later. There are a bunch of caves in the greenbelt throughout Austin.... good place to be a bum. About three caves I went into in the greenbelt had living supplies in them.:\:
 
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The cavers were at it again today. There is a little crack in the ground down in one of our pastures, and they wiggled there way in about three-hundred feet. In the seventies, a coon dog got stuck in there, and they hunters had to find a really skinny guy to go in after him. They seem to think that it goes in about a thousand feet. That would put them under my grandfathers house, and about 200 feet below it. They've named it Coon Dog Cave. There are a lot of holes and spots where different streams go underground. They are going to map the farm and give us a copy.
 
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  • #36
I've played in that field for 30 years, and never guessed there was something that cool just under ground.
 
When I was young, my friends and I would sneak into the caves near Mendota (Che mentioned), the coolest ones were beneath the old Schmidt brewery where they used to store alot of their beer. You could spend a day in there and still not explore all the caverns.

Caving is dangerous, they continually seal up entrances to the caves around here, as every year it seems someone dies from CO poisoning. Just yesterday, 2 people took shelter in an underground tunnel along the river bluffs during a heavy downpour, and when the rain water surged through the tunnel they were washed out into the Mississippi River where one of them drown.
 
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