My 12 yr old daughter REALLY wanted to go caving for her 12th B-day
but the only wild cave available for this is one I really did not feel
like doing, some long crawls in sand filled passages, etc and I am
afraid of messing up my back in the cave and them needing rescue. She
also wanted to take her friend and his dad who had never been caving.
This is no biggie cuz I had taken many new cavers in this cave years
ago. Fortunately, a 62 year old friend of mine who is in very good
shape led the trip and brought along some other new people.
The cave is in a deep sink requiring either a handline or cable ladder
to descend roughly 35'. Heavy rains this yr had radically altered the
sink making the handline nearly uselsss so I got down 8' and then had
to do a body rapell into the sink. Everybody else used the cable
ladder but I did get to scare away a very large water moccassin at the
bottom of the ladder. This snake was very healthy looking and I
assume he fed on critters that fell over the edge and were stunned.
Once in the cave, I felt ok as long as I moved slow. My daughter and
wife continuously admonished me to drink gator aide so in spite of
extreme sweating I was ok.
I was surprised that I really got into it and had no trouble crawling
into small stuff and twisting over and through things. My daughters
dad was clearly surprised at the difficulty of all of this.. The cave
had changed radically so we had to crawl thru a tiny passage and
finally came to a seriously small place. The older experienced guy
and four others who were smaller went on through but the dad and one
other new guy said they couldnt make it through and one guy got stuck
but we pulled him back out. Checking the map we realized the really
tight passage continued for 90+ feet so I decided to take my party
back out and allow the smaller experienced guys to go on.
BY the time I was almost out of the cave, my old confidence had
returned and I was moving through the rock like I used to. Looking
down a passage newly opened by the recent rains,I was really wanting
to go crawling down it but I know I shouldn't. The back problem could
recurr at any time and then I'd need to be rescued. Best to leave it
for my kids.
Aside from the dehydration problems and chronic back problems I was
doing, I was doing as well as the younger guys. Still, its only going
to be easier caves for me in the future.

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:19:11 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

My 12 yr old daughter REALLY wanted to go caving for her 12th B-day
but the only wild cave available for this is one I really did not feel
like doing, some long crawls in sand filled passages, etc and I am
afraid of messing up my back in the cave and them needing rescue. She
also wanted to take her friend and his dad who had never been caving.
This is no biggie cuz I had taken many new cavers in this cave years
ago. Fortunately, a 62 year old friend of mine who is in very good
shape led the trip and brought along some other new people.
The cave is in a deep sink requiring either a handline or cable ladder
to descend roughly 35'. Heavy rains this yr had radically altered the
sink making the handline nearly uselsss so I got down 8' and then had
to do a body rapell into the sink. Everybody else used the cable
ladder but I did get to scare away a very large water moccassin at the
bottom of the ladder. This snake was very healthy looking and I
assume he fed on critters that fell over the edge and were stunned.
Once in the cave, I felt ok as long as I moved slow. My daughter and
wife continuously admonished me to drink gator aide so in spite of
extreme sweating I was ok.
I was surprised that I really got into it and had no trouble crawling
into small stuff and twisting over and through things. My daughters
dad was clearly surprised at the difficulty of all of this.. The cave
had changed radically so we had to crawl thru a tiny passage and
finally came to a seriously small place. The older experienced guy
and four others who were smaller went on through but the dad and one
other new guy said they couldnt make it through and one guy got stuck
but we pulled him back out. Checking the map we realized the really
tight passage continued for 90+ feet so I decided to take my party
back out and allow the smaller experienced guys to go on.
BY the time I was almost out of the cave, my old confidence had
returned and I was moving through the rock like I used to. Looking
down a passage newly opened by the recent rains,I was really wanting
to go crawling down it but I know I shouldn't. The back problem could
recurr at any time and then I'd need to be rescued. Best to leave it
for my kids.
Aside from the dehydration problems and chronic back problems I was
doing, I was doing as well as the younger guys. Still, its only going
to be easier caves for me in the future.

Glad to hear you had a good day, Froggy. Doing things with your kids,
especially at that age, is important and fun. Did you get any
pictures?
--
John H

"A government policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul."
-- George Bernard Shaw