Cavers: Michelle, Kat, Sarah, Pablo, Brendan
By Kat
Early on Sunday morning we got the rental car and drove a few hours to the cave. We parked on the side of the road and bushwacked up a hill to get to the cave entrance around 1:30. Here we decided to each lunch outside before caving since it was nice and warm and sunny instead of cold and dark and wet. Outside the cave is a pretty waterfall and pond.
We started the cave about a half hour later. Each person had a cavepack and we took turns carrying an additional pack with our new boat (the Explorer 200) and a pump to inflate it. We got through the first squeeze pretty easily, and then got to the wet pinch. It was full of water when Michelle first attempted it, so she backed out of it again and we bailed water into a bucket left in the cave. The pinch sucked with the water but we all made it through. However, most of us got our head partially submerged and we quickly moved on to stay warm. Compared to the wet pinch, the third squeeze was actually pretty easy.
We soon got to the first big room in the cave and had to decide between going one direction farther into the cave to get to the corkscrew, or finding the lake room to use the Explorer 200. We chose the lake room, and crawled up and down some muddy slopes (using ropes left in the cave for support) to get there. At the lake room, we inflated the Explorer 200 and took turns going on the lake with it. The Explorer 200 is a $17 inflatable boat, which is about as cheap as you can get. The Explorer 300 is similar but comes with paddles too for an additional $60. Luckily the lake in Morris is exactly the width of an Explorer 200 and we were able to push along the sides of the wall and move without paddles. Once we finished paddling around, we spent about half an hour deflating the boat and trying to fit it in a cave pack again.
We retraced our steps back to the big room where we first came in after the pinches and decided to head out instead of exploring the corkscrew since we were all a little tired and had spent so much time inflating and deflating the Explorer 200. All the pinches were about the same or easier on the way out. We drove back to Boston where Michelle, Pablo, and Brendan deconned in McGregor and Sarah and I deconned in the pika basement. Overall, it was a great first cave for Pablo and Brendan, Michelle successfully ghostlead us and became a tripleader, and Sarah and I were there too or whatever. Yippee!