I signed up for one formal caving trip on the bulletin board. It was "Eric's River Cave."
The trip leader was a caver I had never heard of Chris Schlotter. It turns out he was the original explorer of this cave in 1995. He is well known around here in southern Indiana, and he had several photos in the photo salon and won a Merit Award. We took our time getting to the cave, which was only about 20 minutes from the NSS Campground. The cave is in an insignificant ridge not far off the highway and just a few miles from the famous Overlook Restaurant. A very small stream flows out of what looks like a breakdown collapse on the edge of the ridge only about 20 feet above a small creek flowing towards the Ohio River. It hasn't rained much in the past few days, so when we were there, we only saw a trickle of water. The entrance is a tight crawl for about 10 feet to a man-made vertical culvert cemented in breakdown. The culvert is only 8 inches long, but in order to get thru it requires a person to contortion and squirm their way thru it. I didn't think I was going to fit and was stuck uncomfortably for a minute or so. After that, it was crawling thru breakdown for about 50 feet. I wasn't having any fun, and didn't bring kneepads on this trip. I was wearing a nylon stretch body suit like you would wear snorkeling. Then we popped out in wide stream passage. It was walking the rest of the cave; but I had to tilt my head a lot and sometimes stoop walk which I find very exhausting over muddy slippery rocks. The mud in the cave was like peanut butter, and we typically stayed in the stream. The problem there was the breakdown in the water. I must have fallen on my ass about 6 times. I needed cordura shorts over my thin suit to protect me from that. There is one place in the cave with some sort of graffiti. Mr. Schlotter is convinced that it is thousands of years old. It was black markings and scratches on the ceiling. It resembled and hour-glass with loops on each corner. And the other looked like a space-ship or a doodle-bug with only 2 legs. I couldn't make anything out of it, but would agree that it is not something a typical graffiti artist would paint. [ It is obvious that if you were to remove the breakdown at the entrance crawlway you would have a walk in size entrance, so maybe thousands of years ago, an Indian walked up into the cave with a small torch. After nearly a mile of walking over muddy wet rocks, I had had enough. Around every bend it was just the same old thing. Occasionally there would be a formation. There was plenty of troglobitic crawfish and fish in the cave, and even 2 tiny sleeping bats. Near the back of the cave was a small crawling side passage. It was more similar to some of the stream passages I have seen in Texas. The rock was very sharp and scalloped on all 4 sides of the passage and there was little mud. It was completely different from the rest of the cave. Not having kneepads, and being too large for crawling passages, I turned around after about 1/2 way. I think I saw 85 % of what most cavers see when they do a trip in this cave. There are several crawling side passages, but Mr. Schlotter says they don't go far. Personally, I feel someone could remove thousands of tons of silt and mud and rock from this cave, and they would have a big long beautiful cave. I bet under all that mud there are interesting discoveries waiting to be seen. Maybe the floor is beautifully scalloped with formations or maybe there is archaelogical or palentological material buried in all that mud. I think it might be a commercial cave if it were in Texas. I had fun. It was probably the most caving I have done in one cave in many years. But for me it was one of those caves that you just want to do once. I wish it were a thru trip. It would be a lot more fun. I didn't have much trouble getting out of the culvert, but it wasn't fun. 2B continued ... David Locklear --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
