McAlisterville and Carnegie caving, August 12 and 13, 2006

The original plan was to take these beginners to Seawra Cave on Saturday. Then Hans had an opportunity to take a reporter from The Philadelphia City Paper on a trip, so he wanted to go to Carnegie on Saturday and then to McAlisterville on Sunday. Things change.

By the week before the trip it seemed like all the beginners I invited either couldn't make it or were backing out. By the time the Thursday before the trip rolled around it was just Steve and I going. This was not a good idea. We talked about just joining up with the other group. Then I had two beginner ask if there was still room, oops, make that three. They are bringing a friend. So we're back on again.

Then Hans emailed that he had to leave early on Sunday and asked if anyone minded if we switch and do McAlisterville on Saturday instead. Great, the three going with Steve and me have been caving before, so we opted to join the McAlisterville trip on Saturday. Confused yet?

We all meet at the usual place. Everyone exchanged greetings and introduced the new cavers to the group. Had a little breakfast, then took off.

After we arrived at the location, we suited up and checked and double-check all the gear. The three new guys, Don, Joe, and Matt, and the reporter, Denis, grouped up with Hans Naoko, Amos, and me. The rest of the more experienced folks went in another group. We hit Bourbon Street first. Although challenging to the beginner, it's a good place for us to assess their natural caving skills. They all did fine.

We did have time to go back and down the Rabbit Hole to the other section of the cave. This is definitely a more challenging section and it gets harder as you go along. Some chimneying and climbing and crawling is necessary to get to Voodoo Rock Room. You gotta' see it understand the name. Unfortunately, the room is so big that my flash can't fill it so I don't have pictures. If you want to see it, you have to come along.

This is where we meet up with the other group coming back from the "window to the new section". We sat a chatted and eat and planned the next move.

Unfortunately Joe, Don, and Matt had to get back home and had to negotiate getting back out again. Nate's group took them out since they were headed in that direction to go to Bourbon Street. Guys, next time we get you to the window. So we just had Denis with us.

We wound up getting to the top of the passage to go down to the window where we decided it was a good place to turn around. We saw plenty of cave and didn't want to push too hard. We still had to go back the way we came and chimney and climb and crawl our way out.

Interested in what Denis thought of all this? Here's a link to his article he wrote for The Philadelphia City Paper. http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006-09-07/naked.shtml

Hans was kind enough to make reservation at a local campground for all of us. It was real nice to sit and relax after the trip and just talk and look at the stars next to a roaring campfire. A good night's sleep and we can cave again tomorrow.

Sunday was another great weather day. Everyone crawled out of their tents, one at a time. Breakfast was started, and packing up to go was in order. With no real schedule to keep, we took our time and talked about what we would like to do that day.

Hans and Naoko had to take off, as planned, so Amos, Dave, Alyson, Nate, and myself were left. Dave and Alyson had not been to Carnegie before, so we thought that would be a good easy trip to do while we were out here.

As a side note, this is all a little fuzzy for me. I woke up at 2 AM with a migraine that would not go away. It took me forever to choke down some oatmeal and coffee that morning. It just is not a good way to spend a perfectly good caving day. But I did have a chance to talk to the Venturing Crew camped next to us that morning. I gave them my contact information and offered to help find someone to work on the Caving Elective with them.

It was nice to get in the cool damp cave, even in the muddy cloths we had on from the day before. I was hoping that Carnegie would be a pleasant distraction from this migraine I still had. At first it was, but I was just slowing down the group. So I opted to sit for a while and relax while they went on and if I didn't feel any better, I'd exit the cave, which I finally wound up doing.

After a short nap back at the cars, the rest of the group came back happier than, well, cavers in mud. Amos and Nate had so much fun, they decided to check out Cleversburg Sink while they were still dressed of it.

There was a party going on at the park where we were staged for changing. One of the families, a mother with a herd of kids, came over to ask us if we were cavers. She seemed happy to meet us. Her husband talked about wanting to go caving and she was delighted to get our contact information to give to him.

Another short nap later Amos and Nate came back. I was still in a fog and don't remember what their conversation was. It had something to do with not getting into the gate, but that the entrance was all fixed up. Or something like that. You'll have to ask them.

Then we all packed up our muddy stuff and headed home and back to our lives above ground.

Take a look at the complete photo album.