There�s no caves at the Nature Center (or most other places in New Jersey) but there�s plenty of cave activities nonetheless. A hay bale maze gets built, with tarps ovehead. An obstacle course has to be navigated bindfolded with a guideline, to simulate silt-out while cave diving. A squuezebox gets brought in. A live bat guy brings in flying foxes and does a show with them. This year someone even made bat chocolates.

And there�s also the rope work. For a relative pittance you (or your kid) can get on a Ropewalker, climbing several stories of rope to reach the top of the fed-out rope hung over a tree. There�s a cow bell there to ring, at which point we lower you back down: they don�t have to do changeovers.

I don�t consider myself particularly adept at vertical work - even after a week of the NCRC Cave Resuce course, which might as well be called Seven Days of Knots. But what we�re doing is not all that technical.

Peter Welles and I have been this for the past few years, each bringing our Rope Walkers. It takes a while to get a Rope Walker on and off a six-year-old: chest rollers and shoulders straps need to be drastically altered, and the bungee cord needs a knot in it to take up most of its length. We skip putting seat harnesses on, because that would just add more time, and there�s always a few patient (or impatient) kids waiting for their turn to climb the rope.

Peter found that a slipknot tied in the bungee cord was very easy to adjust, and held firm when being tugged. In most rope it would pop right out, but the bungee is never weight-bearing, and it saved our fingers a lot of untying and retying.

Some parents are interested in climbing as well, but due to the time, it�s mostly just the kids who go up.

Thanks to the time of getting each kid ready, I had never been in the hay bale maze. I could sneak out for a minute to grab a soda at a hot dog, but never the time to get a light, crawl into the maze, and spend 15 minutes poking into every dead end. By the time Cave Day was declared over and we had rigged our last kid, the dismantling of the hay bales had begun.

This year we had the maze saved just for us. Dismantling wouldn�t begin until the volunteers had a chance to crawl through it. We weren�t the only people who had never done it.

During our rigging time we had heard from the adults who had tried the maze with their kids. This was a tough one this year. No one was getting lost, but there were sections of pipe in there that adults just could not get themselves through.

It was a drainage pipe someone has borrowed a few lengths of. Just outside the maze entrance, a woman was sitting on a six-foot length of it like a bench. I didn�t know if this was an excess piece or if it was set up just to gauge if you could fit yourself through. I tried to fit myself through.

The pipe was about 18 inches in diameter. My shoulders were wider than the pipe, so I folded my shoulders in and was able to wedge inside. The outside was ribbed and corrugated, but it was smooth inside. My arms were having a hard time getting any grip. But by the time I was halfway in through pushing with my feet, I could reach the other lip with my hands and pull myself out. Piece of cake.

I turned on my headlamp, crawled inside the hay bale maze, and found I didn�t need the light. Enough diffused light was coming down from the tarp roof so I could see. What I could see was a main passage two hay bales high in front of me, and a huge length of that narrow pipe next to it. I wasn�t going to do that pipe unless it was absolutely necessary. I went around.

There were several other times the maze had pipe lengths, but they were always optional. That was good, since I barely fit through it and a lot of parents weigh more than me.

There was a two-year-old kid also doing the maze, small enough to be walking where I was crawling. He was giggling and talkative even though he hadn�t picked up enough words to make full sentences. Think of Boo from Monsters, Inc., only in a bowl haircut. He didn�t seem afraid of being in here by himself, but he seemed happy to have a big person around to do the maze with him.

I put my helmet on the kid�s head, so he could have the light I didn�t need. He put it back on me. OK, so long as you�re not scared. The two of us continued, winding left, right, then left again.

A brighter piece of light was ahead: the exit. There was a trunk passage two hay bales high, and an adjacent side passage built from the drainage pipe. It had to be thirty feet long. There was a quarter by the pipe entrance. Whoever went in it got so squeezed they lost their change.

Thirty feet. That�s just five body lengths. Not long at all. My intestine is that long, and my food makes it down that way without even thinking about it.

Peter crawled up to the pipe now, attempted it for two seconds before backing away. Just not physically possible for him. But I could roll my shoulders enough to fit. But did I want to do that for thirty feet?

Hell, it�d be a good story afterwards. I tried crawling in on my stomach a few times, but decided that my back would give me better foot holds. I wriggled into the torpedo tube, pushing along the dirt floor while I could still touch it.

Once fully inside, I could feel hands pressed against my feet. Peter, giving me a foothold. I used it and slid up a solid foot. His hands stayed for a few more feet, until he couldn�t fit to give handholds.

My feet slipped in the tunnel. They were rather useless. So were my arms, which were in the T Rex position. I was able to flick my helmet up the pipe with an arm whenever the helmet got close, but that was about it. For movement in general, I�d have to worm it.

When I tilted my head straight back, I could see the circle of light from the other side. Someone was standing watch at the far end of the pipe, cheering me on. I couldn�t see much in the other direction past my feet.

Even cavers get a little bit of claustrophobia, and I could tell if I thought about this situation it could get very bad. so I didn�t think about it. I just wormed forward, a few inches at a time. I don�t know which muscles you use to worm forward, but I think it�s all of them, since I was getting a good sweat going every time I moved six inches.

A nice mental thing to realize was that this was plastic, not rock. If I got truly stuck, then I could be cut out real easily. And that wouldn�t happen until someone tossed a rope over to me and would try to pull me out, maybe greasing down the pipe as well. But I was still making time, so no need for the Mazola yet.

The guy at the other end reached out a hand as far into the pipe as he could. After a few more wriggles, I could reach it. He pulled me a few inches, then a few inches more, until i could get the exit end of the pipe in my hand.

It still took a solid minute or two to get out. The handhold was great, but there was still the effort of moving my carcass out. When I was finally able to stand up, I was drenched in sweat. It felt so rewarding to be back in the sun, with open sky all around and cold drinks were a minute away.

I�d spend the next few days as sore as if I had actually been caving all day. But it was worth it for the glory of having the same conversation twelve times.

"Dude, you DID that?"

"Yep." There�s your glory.