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Ever been spelunking?

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Originally posted by: Armitage
Yep - went a few times with the caving club @ Virginia Tech.
The only one I remember by name was Pighole. You rapelled down into a sinkhole where farmers used to toss dead livestock (hence the name). They don't anymore, so no dead rotting corpses lying around. Was a very vertical cave - a few months later a guy died after falling down a shaft that scared the crap out of me when we crossed it.
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that's where I went too.. not with the club, though, and I don't remember which ones.. eh.. one of 'em was "new river cave" and one of 'em was "sinkhole cave" and I don't remember the other one, or have any idea if those were their real names or not. I went 3 times (once with each boy I dated in college.. they all needed to see for themselves that they'd have more fun if I got to stay home!), to a different cave each time.. the first one was really muddy.. was glad I was living in the dorm that year.. showered in my overalls.. institutional water pressure, unlimited hot water and someone else cleaned the showers. 🙂 the other 2 weren't anywhere near so messy, but.. still creepy.

 
"Found" Sam Lynn's cave, in the Laurel mountains in Pa., when I was younger. My buddy's dad had an old newspaper article, from 1880, discribing the area. We got a topo map and found it. Quite an adventure. We'd spend days in there. Bats, waterfall, ribbon stlactites, tiny crawl holes, total darkness. No place for claustrophopics.
 
I went once into a cave in Tennessee. I think it might be on Altamont St. Park, but we drove there from our campsite. It was a cool place, although the big white spider creeps the sh!t out of me even to this day. We brought jugs of water and there is one room with a sand/dirt floor and we dumped the jugs and went mudsliding and then washed off in a waterfall near the mouth of the cave.
 
Yup, use to go a lot, before I had kids, now don't get to go as much, but still go. Southern VT has some awesome networks of caves.
j
 
yep, it was a little scary. Bats and streams and all....I'm glad we got out 🙂

Edit: This was back in my crazy youth. On a trip, and just pulled up on the side of a rural road next to some cow pasture....
 
Originally posted by: Brutuskend
Originally posted by: Fmr12B
Lived in Missouri for 3-yrs, spelunked many a cave
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Yeah Mo. is great for caves.

I lived there several years myself.

Before that, Bedford Indiana. Limestone capitol of the world (or so they claim).

All in all, I've probably been in 8-10 different caves, and most of them un guided.

I miss them. Not much in the cave category around here. (Or.)
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Holy cow - I used to live real close to Bedford in a little town named Mitchell, and I can vouch for the fact that there are a lot of good caves in that area. Spring Mill State Park in Mitchell has lots of caves to explore.

Anyway, I've been spelunking in wild caves many times - its one of my favorite things to do. Here in east Tennessee there are a lot of wild caves, some of them really remote. Sadly, my caving buddy moved away about 4 years ago, and the only wild cave I've been in since then was a tallus cave at the Pinnacles National Monument in central California.

Wasn't there a member here named 'CavingJan'???

EDIT: There are some great caves in Oregon - you just have to know where to look. Case in point.
 
Originally posted by: anno
Originally posted by: Armitage
Yep - went a few times with the caving club @ Virginia Tech.
The only one I remember by name was Pighole. You rapelled down into a sinkhole where farmers used to toss dead livestock (hence the name). They don't anymore, so no dead rotting corpses lying around. Was a very vertical cave - a few months later a guy died after falling down a shaft that scared the crap out of me when we crossed it.
Click to expand...

that's where I went too.. not with the club, though, and I don't remember which ones.. eh.. one of 'em was "new river cave" and one of 'em was "sinkhole cave" and I don't remember the other one, or have any idea if those were their real names or not. I went 3 times (once with each boy I dated in college.. they all needed to see for themselves that they'd have more fun if I got to stay home!), to a different cave each time.. the first one was really muddy.. was glad I was living in the dorm that year.. showered in my overalls.. institutional water pressure, unlimited hot water and someone else cleaned the showers. 🙂 the other 2 weren't anywhere near so messy, but.. still creepy.
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yeh, same here. while i was at tech, i went a few times. all to the same cave though. i don't know the name of it, but it was right near the river, so I'm assuming it was the "new river cave" you mentioned.

i took a girl in there once (just a friend). she had a panic attack about halfway in, so we stopped. but my flashlight was running low so we sat there in the dark for about 20 minutes till she calmed down (i don't know how sitting in a dark cave calmed her down, especially with bats flying around her head).
 
Originally posted by: Armitage
Originally posted by: Brutuskend
Originally posted by: Fmr12B
Lived in Missouri for 3-yrs, spelunked many a cave
Click to expand...

Yeah Mo. is great for caves.

I lived there several years myself.

Before that, Bedford Indiana. Limestone capitol of the world (or so they claim).

All in all, I've probably been in 8-10 different caves, and most of them un guided.

I miss them. Not much in the cave category around here. (Or.)
Click to expand...

Lava tubes up in the cascades? Not quite the same I guess.
Click to expand...

No, not the same....

I was disappointed.

The only real cave I know of in Oregon is the one down at cave junction, and it a guided tour. SUCKS
 
Yup wild cave, several times it was fun. Except for the exit where I have to turn sideways on the ground and wriggle out... I was bigger than most of the people I was with... damn shoulders.


at one point one of the guys was crawling through a hole exploring and it turns out it was a sharp drop off..... good thing we had him tied up and were holding the rope or he woulda been dead 🙂 he was always stupid though,
 
not sure if its true "spelunking" but i went down a lavatube that was supposedly about 3/4 mile long...lotsa fun...crawling thorugh some spaces was kinda sharp though stupid lava turning into obsidian shards...
 
I've been to a number of caves in the MD/WV/VA area and I have my own equipment but I don't really have anyone to go with these days. It's not exactly something you'd want to do solo.
 
I used to go caving a lot when I was younger and lived in Pennsylvania. It's a lot of fun but you will be COMPLETELY filthy when you come out.

Dave
 
Originally posted by: Apathetic
I used to go caving a lot when I was younger and lived in Pennsylvania. It's a lot of fun but you will be COMPLETELY filthy when you come out.

Dave
Click to expand...

Edit: I used to belong to the Loyalhanna Grotto of the NSS
 
I want to do the 'New Cave' of the Carlsbad Complex.

Not sure I want to deal with a wild cave, unless I'd had a fair bit of preparation
by going on controled explorations.
 
Cave in Climax (yes its the name of the town) Kentucky. We went maybe half a dozen times. It was a great fun. This cave is huge, with several entrances. Most of it was easy going apart from some crawling through mud and water.

One time we went with a newbie who was pretty overweight he freaked out when we got to a section he couldnt climb out of, it was the only way out. We ended up hauling his ass out of there, he never went again.

Another time one of the guys slipped and fell down in a huge pool of bat crap and piss, we called him batboy for months afterwards.
 
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