I met with Bryan Cook at 9 am to visit Toronto
Springs Cave. Neither one of us had visited the cave
before. After a 15 minute walk we entered the cave
and made our way past the “Toronto Zoo”, just past the
entrance. The passage continued in a key shape, being
wider at the top than the bottom and some 4 feet tall.
There was a small stream flooring the cave that could
be avoided with some effort. The passage curved back
and forth and soon we reached a partial blockade in
the passage, forcing us to either crawl through a
upper or lower hole. We chose the upper and
continued. The passage was narrow, and curvy. Ahead
was a narrow squeeze, I passed through and waited for
Brian. I guessed we were 350 ft. in the cave at this
point. While waiting on Bryan, I heard something
sloshing through the stream up ahead. I alerted Bryan
and we both listened closely. Suddenly there was a
low “thud”, I yelled “hello!”, but got no response.
Roughly 10 feet ahead of me the passage made a hard
left making it impossible to see around the corner.
Whatever was around the corner was drawing near. We
both decided to leave the cave in fear of what may be
lurking there, and quickly made our way back out to
the entrance. We left the cave, and to this day do
not know what we were hearing. We made our way back
to the vehicles, and said our goodbye’s. From here I
made my way over to the entrance of Perkins Cave to
meet up with PEG, and KCAG members, including Andy
Isabell, Gary Johnson, Steve Potter, Pam Raider, and
two there members who’s name I cannot recall. Gary
Johnson was the trip leader and he easily opened the
cave gate and we all piled in. We veered left and
soon were crawling in uninviting water. Occasionally
we could duck walk, but mostly it was crawling.
Finally we were able to stand in the caves main
passage. Almost immediately a few of us took a stream
passage to the left and later joined the group a short
distance down the main passage. The cave was already
living up to its reputation of being very wet and
muddy. Gary Johnson had brought a map of the cave,
which turned out to be a good thing because the cave
gets confusing about half way through. There are many
side passages to choose from, and we spent some time
investigating them. We did see a very nice dome room,
being about 25 foot tall. The floor was white sand
contrasted with black chert. We dare not step into
the white sand, and all huddled against the wall to
get a view. Ahead we encountered a pooled area. The
water was very murky and you could not see the bottom.
Walking through the pools was tricky because they had
a very deep clay bottom. Steve Potter told a story of
how on a previous Perkins trip a girl got stuck here.
On this occasion we all made it through and eventually
made our way to the cave’s final room. We turned
around and soon were back at the entrance. Perkins
Cave is VERY muddy and tiring. Not only is the mud
tiresome, but the changing dimensions of the cave
force one to walk, stoop, climb, and crawl. There is
very little consistency, making it hard to get a good
rhythm. Several bats were noted, mainly Pips, and
some trash was removed, ie. flashlights.
Submitted by:Eric Hertzler
