Andrew was running a McFail�s weekend. There weren�t a lot of people free this weekend, so it was just Andrew, Barclay, and Dave Mahoney. I would be #4. Andrew and Barclay weren�t the only Foords out and about that weekend. As Andrew was driving up, he dropped his son Conrad off at a section of trail. Conrad was currently doing a solo hike for the weekend. They�d meet back up on Sunday, Andrew having caved and Conrad having camped.

I had thought there was just the one entrance to McFail's, but the NSS preserve is riddled with holes. In all the bellyaching about Asia Dome, no one thought it at all interesting that they rigged the Ack�s Shack hole as a backup.

We all carried our wetsuits through the woods, marching past holes dropping to the left of us and the right of us. There was a lot of karst here, several small caves in addition to the various McFail's entrances. I�ve got a wetsuit just for caving, although it�s rather impractical for a trip like this. While Andrew and Barclay debated the merits of 3-mil suits versus two-mil suits, I pulled on my 7-mil farmer John and a matching 7-mil jacket. That�s 14-mil of rubber and neoprene from chest to thighs.

Getting it on took a while. It was thick enough to push me into a spread eagle position. I could move around, but whenever I wasn�t moving, I noticed my arms gradually returning to a spread eagle position. Just getting it on made me break out in a thorough sweat.

With so much extra thickness, I was having trouble getting my harness fastened. (I swear, it�s the wetsuit, not all the food I had for dinner the night before.) I could pull the strap through the buckle, but I just could barely fold it back over, and couldn�t get enough of it folded back to double it back through the buckle. I exhausted my fingers for ten minutes trying to force that short bit of stiff fabric back.

I had assumed the entrance of McFail's was the pit lip. The lip to Coeyman�s Dome is very close, but there�s 20 feet in between, enough so you�re in the cave and out of the mosquito zone when you�re ready to rappel.

Also hiding outside this mosquito zone was a dog, waiting patiently at the lip. Chuck or Peter�s dog, probably. Since they don�t make doggie racks, he was waiting it out here in the shade. I wouldn�t leave my dog like this, but this dog seemed content with waiting, and was not even thinking of going over the lip.

Andrew, Dave and Barclay rigged our rope next to the first group�s, but tucked it up and away. We went down the other rope, so there would only be one rope hanging. Whoever came back first could derig theirs and drop down the other one.

I was last going down the rope because I was still trying to get that damn buckle doubled over. The buckle felt nice and secure without the doubling, and I debated the merits of descended with the buckle as is. I could see the accident report: "Ryan did not have his harness securely fastened when he descended, as it hurt his poor little fingers to do so. Services are Thursday." I spent the extra couple minutes and got the buckle doubled.

The 67-foot Coeyman�s Dome drop is really a 12-foot nuisance drop to a ledge, followed by the big 55-foot rappel. The waterfall was non-existent today, just a wet trickle running down the cave wall. I descended dry.

The other three guys had taken off their vertical gear by the time I reached bottom. I unhooked the D-ring with my rack and QAS binered in, but left my harness on. No way was I having to jam that buckle closed a second time.

There was a miscommunication right now which could have been bad, but wasn�t. I saw everyone putting their packs full of vertical gear off to the side. Maybe we were starting with a short side crawl, before picking up the packs. I left my pack, with the vertical gear as well as my food, water and spare light sources, and began crawling packless.

It wasn�t until half an hour in that I found out the other three guys each had two packs: a vertical pack and a small pack with food, water and batteries. Nuts. I wasn�t going back, so I�d just have to do without. My LED would guarantee I wouldn�t need a battery change: hopefully I wouldn�t get too hungry or thirsty.

One of the first things I saw as I started crawling in was a washed-in hunk of wood with mushrooms growing on it. They were very thin and very long, and made the piece of wood look like a bed of nails. 50 feet in the cave and already I was seeing new stuff.

There was just a few stray puddles of water, but soon enough there were ankle-deep passages, and skinny passages with a thin stream running down, and then a thick stream. My Aqua Socks were getting a lot of use, but not the rest of the wetsuit.

The passage in the cave stretched for miles and miles, and varied from turn to turn. A little crawling, then walking in a narrow canyon, then a bigger canyon, then elephant walking, hunched over in thigh-deep water. That elephant walking was the worst, because it didn�t seem to come in any length under 100 feet. I�d much rather crawl than elephant walk, even though crawling�s much more energy-intensive.

My delay in descending meant that by the time I got to the two nuisance drops, Andrew and Barclay had already rigged them with the cable ladder. The group in ahead of us had also brought a pair of cable ladders for these drops. Like the rope, our cable ladders were rolled neatly up in whatever crack they could be stuck in while still rigged. I gracefully climbed down the other group�s ladders � I might be lying about �gracefully� � and continued ahead.

I was getting much more tired on this trip than on others. Making every step in a full-body blood pressure cuff was taking a toll. When I started caving, I went on six-hour trips that utterly wiped me out. I don�t think of myself in better shape now than I was then, but I weigh less, know my way around caves more often, and usually don�t find myself on many long trips. It had been awhile since I had felt myself get wiped in a cave. I was actually looking forward to feeling that way at the end of this trip. But not in the first hour!

Andrew and Barclay were both using carbides for this trip: Andrew a brass cap lamp, and Barclay a ceiling burner. Dave had a traditional electric headlamp. I was using a $9.99 LED headlight. Our four different lights made a series of shadows on the wall, although when Barclay was around the rest of us might as well have turned our lights off. Just for the hell of it, I�d switch my light to the red LED, and the whole cave looked like a submarine in crisis.

At the food breaks, I stole a bite of a granola bar or a sip of water here and there. I had eaten and drunk a lot just before entering � all of it junk: some lemon cookies, half a bag of Cheetos, a quart of chocolate milk � so I was fueled up. (That might also explain my belt harness problem.)

I was expecting thirst to be an issue, but it really wasn�t. The whole seven-hour trip, none of us got thirsty. There�s so much humidity in the air, we were breathing in enough water to keep us hydrated. I wish some other caves were like that.

If you�ve ever caved with Andrew or Barclay, you know it�s like caving with a dirty joke book. Dave contributed his share of conversational filth by brigning up the habits of guys he knew in college (ask Dave if you want to hear some good stuff). My paltry contribution was assorted bits of trivia. My brain�s essentially one big Snapple cap.

Once, while slogging through the knee-deep water, I tripped and did a half-belly flop in the water. I had my wetsuit jacket mostly unzipped, so the water went right in the overalls. I went from hot to cold real quick. But then that cool water began to feel refreshing. After five minutes, I was back to almost overheating. So it goes in McFail's.

We took a series of breakdown hops over narrow parts of the water passage: wherever it was easier proceeding. At the end of these, Andrew recommended we back up a few feet to see the Waterfall Bypass. He said it was running a little dry, but I never pass up a chance to see an underground waterfall.

We eventually got to a junction room, where we took a turn and headed for a sump. There was a lot more water here, but soon enough we got to a four-foot high passage with a sandbar along one side, and that was the end of the line for us. It was not the end of the line literally, since cave diving guidelines were stretched taut into the sump. But without diving gear and a updated will, we were just going to look.

I�d never touched a cave diving guideline before. The ceiling by the sump got shorter and the water got higher, making a gradual sump. It�d be 70 feet before there was an air pocket. Just touching the rope gave me chills. I do NOT want to drown.

There was a menagerie of animals stuck by this sump. We saw the frog first. He was sitting in the water, eyes unblinking, like he was dead. He got a little bit of movement when we picked him up, probably the most movement he had in a while. Andrew picked up a live moth and stuck it in front of him to eat. Later I found a salamander in the same semi-hibernation, and then some little beetle puttering around the water. They�d all be washed out of the sump during the next flood.

We slogged our way back to the junction room, taking the Northwest Passage. This literally stretched for miles. Along this passage, after hours and hours of progressively more miserable caving conditions, was Asia Dome. A lot of people I know have gone there, just once, just to say they�ve done it. God help me, I want to do it one of these days. But not today.

We went down the Northwest Passage for half an hour, and then made a decision to stop. There was, what, an hour of passage down this way, some of it miserable, before it all turned abundantly miserable? The reward for any bit of passage in McFail's is the chance to do it again coming back � and we had plenty of bad stuff already scheduled for the return trip. We did a K-turn and started out.

As we made the long hike back, Dave and I got in the lead, and Andrew and Barclay were in the rear. (Their carbides had been admirably without problems, but any carbide trip will eventually stop for a few minutes of unscheduled maintenance.) We got to a point where we were out of contact with each other. With just straight cave passage ahead of us, we could continue on without getting lost. If we got confused, we could just wait a few minutes for the experienced people to show up.

I was keeping unnecessarily tense so we wouldn�t miss our turnoff. There was exactly one turn in two houts of passage, and it was a big obvious turn, but that just made a lot of anxiousness about not walking past it. By the time I got there, it was a relief to take that right turn.

Dave wasn�t feeling so hot on the way out. He had been debating doing the trip, but felt good enough once we got there to suit up. He had done fine all through the trip, but if we passed an express elevator to the top, Dave would take it without much thought.

The elephant walking was even less pleasant coming back. Bent over at the waist, your arms touching the ceiling for balance, wading through cold water in passages that just go on and on and on. There�s a resolve you get after doing a lot of miserable passage, an utter lack of complaint. It�s lousy, but complaining will just waste breath, so without pause you get through. The sooner in, the sooner out.

I had completely forgotten about the cable ladders when I reached the first one. In panicing about that single turn and any other landmarks I could think of, you�d imagine that the ladders would enter. The other group�s ladders were gone, and they had unrolled ours down to their bottoms. Dave and I climbed up them, and left them for Andrew and Barclay to climb and derig.

The passages became more and more familiar as we passed through. It ended with a crawl through a white hunk of flowstone, with that mushroom bed of nails on the side. A minute after seeing that, we were back in Coeyman�s Dome.

I grabbed my pack for the first time in about six hours. I wasn�t hungry or thirsty at all. This cave was doing weird things to me. I forced myself to drink a bottle of Gatorade.

Dave and I got our ascending gear ready. I pulled out my Ropewalker from my pack, and then realized my rack wasn�t in there. Didn�t I put it back in the pack before ditching it here? It wasn�t on the floor of the pit. This wasn�t just my rack missing, but also my D-ring, QAS, and the foot loops to my Frog setup, which I hadn�t bothered to detach from the QAS. Where was it all?

For about 15 minutes I thought the other group had taken it up with them. Maybe it was sitting at the top of the pit. Maybe there was some emergency, and my gear was needed to get someone up. I couldn�t fathom that it had been stolen: cavers wouldn�t do that to other cavers. Especially not with the QAS and the foot loops: if I was frogging up this, I�d be trapped.

I found my gear at the one spot of color in the otherwise-monochrome cave: Andrew and Barclay�s stashed packs. Next to them was my bundle of gear, stuck out of harm�s way by Barclay. Nice of him to do that. Should have been the first place I looked.

Dave went up first, since he was getting cold. My 14-mil-clad body was doing just fine, so I stuck around until Andrew and Barclay made their way through the passage. They were cold, too. Hypothermia sets a safety clock for everyone in this cave. Ignore it, get too cold, and you�ll be in trouble. I was the exception because of my suit, but if we had done a more strenuous trip, or if I had been hauling around my pack the whole time, it might be a less rosy story.

Ropewalking up the passage in the wetsuit was not my fondest memory. You get overheated very quick. I was glad I wasn�t doing the extra effort of frogging it up � aside from when I reached the end of the rope, and it took me five whole minutes to get all my equipment unclipped. As expected, the first team�s rope was gone, as was their dog.

Once I was up top, Andrew and Barclay tied the cable ladders to the bottom of the rope, and I hauled it up. I thought it would be easier to just clip them to my harness and Ropewalk up with them. I sure wasn�t going to go back down and then try Ropewalking up with them, just to see which required less effort.

Andrew and Barclay were at the top of the lip before I could blink. I went outside into the fading sunlight to change out my wetsuit. It took just as long to pull off as it did to pull on. Andrew and Barclay were walking back with their suits on, so they were ready to go by the time I was still trying to pull the jacket sleeves off my arms.

The bugs were eating Dave alive, so by the time we got to the top, Dave was gone. He had derigged Ack�s Shack, so that saved a few minutes. We had seven hours in the cave, all told. I wasn�t quite wiped, but I sure wasn�t ready to cave again that day. I didn�t think I was cold, but my body temperature was many digits away from 98.6. The cave took its toll, as I figured.

I now want to see Asia Dome. I think most people who have been there have sworn never to return. Until I get the initiative to talk some other people into going, Asia Dome will be the new trip on the top of my short list.

Andrew and Barclay were running a weekend trip to McFails, but I was busy that Sunday helping my girlfriend move. I�d have to do this as a day trip. It was a whole tank of gas blown so one person could go caving, but it was a rare chance to do a serious cave as a day trip.

As it happened, the day trip worked out OK for trip purposes. Barclay had forgotten the two cable ladders for the nuisance drops. He gave me a call Friday night and asked if I could pick them up. I was taking 287 up, so I�d be about a minute from his house. Saturday morning I got up early, picked up the cable ladders, and got to Speleobooks at 11:30. I saw the trip was just Andrew, Barclay, Dave Mahoney and me.

When we got to the McFail�s parking site, I called Jen from my cell phone. I let her know our agenda: we�d be going in around 2:00, coming out around 9:00, I�d call then, and would hopefully be home by midnight. This didn�t fit neatly with my previous estimation of a noon entry time, 6:00 exit and 9:00 return time; I have a habit of underestimating times.

Five minutes later � OK, half an hour � we were off for the Hall�s Hole entrance. I don�t normally call people and let them know my in and out time. It�s the responsible thing to do, but someone in my group is almost always married or otherwise has someone they�re in close contact with anyways. So I let them do it. But I didn�t want Jen to be worried, and we had cell reception, so I called.

We went into McFails for seven hours.

We came out, and it took half an hour to derig and walk back to the car. At 9:30 I opened the back of Andrew�s van, pulled out my cell phone, and found it dead. I had left it on, and it uselessly frittered away its battery topside.

Nuts. Now I couldn�t call Jen. Barclay�s phone was working fine, but thanks to cell phones, I now have exactly one phone number memorized. I borrowed Barclay�s phone and called that one number. "Hello, Mom?"

"Hi Sean!"

"Hi. I�ve got a favor. Could you call Jeff and get him to call Jen to tell her that I�m out of the cave?" I couldn�t ask Mom to call Jen directly because Mom didn�t have Jen�s number. My brother had it on his phone, though, and so Mom could relay that call.

Mom said she would, and that was that. Nothing more I could do to express my safety other than driving home. I rode back with Andrew, Barclay and Dave to the Schoharie cabin, where I had parked my car.

If I had a car charger, I could have powered the phone up. But I didn�t have a car charger. I used to, but I switched phones and the new one was incompatible. I switched phones, ironically, because my wall charger was broken and I had to constantly use the car charger to keep it juiced. A few times when I needed to make a call, I just sat in the car with the key in the ignition. Now I had a much better phone I could recharge anywhere, aside from my car and a cabin with no electricity.

(One neat feature of that old phone was that, even when it turned itself off from lack of power, it still had enough power left to turn on and let you make a minute of phone call. That was enough to apologize for suddenly hanging up on someone, or enough to let your girlfriend know that you�re not lying with a broken neck at the bottom of a drop.)

It was tempted to just crash in the cabin for the night. I was tired. But I needed to let Jen know I was OK. After half an hour of rest, I sprung from the cabin couch and went to my car.

I started the drive back with the heat on. It was July, but seven hours in that cave had dropped my body temperature. I figured it would just be a few minutes before I started sweating, but I was able to absorb that heat without sweating for most all of the trip.

When I stopped for food on the Thruway, the air conditioning felt cold, and the warm car felt better. I didn�t think I was hungry or thirsty either, but at the rest stop I got a Roy Rogers bacon double cheeseburger with a Cherry Coke, and sucked that down without feeling remotely full.

I got back into New Jersey a little after 1:00, and into Jen�s parents� driveway at 1:30. I tiptoed in, unfolded the couch, and tried to tell my body it was allowed to go to sleep now.

I woke Jen up, and it turned out she hadn�t gotten the message. (I�d get a call from Jeff�s phone the next morning, since he hadn�t bothered to check messages when he wasn�t expecting any.) So was glad I had done the drive then.

Two days later, I bought a new car charger.