Allen Rush got the idea to put a trip together to see some of these little-visited caves. I snuck out of work at 4:30 and drove to the Texaco by Lake Tranquility to meet him. Charlie Wilson, Alice Taylor and Ray Engelberg were already there. It had rained on us driving over here, but the skies were presently dry. Bubbles pulled in four minutes later, and that was our group.
The six of us followed Allen's lead to the Mud Pond Cave entrance, where two of the cars were left. The other drivers got in Ray's car, and we went to a parking lot near the Yellow Frame Cave entrance. We'd walk to Yellow Frame, then to Mud Pond, and then out to the two stashed cars and ride back to the rest of our vehicles.
I had the full contingent of polypro underwear and coveralls in my trunk, but no one else was suiting up for these dinky caves. I followed along. I had brown pants on from work, with knee pads overtop them. I could slather them in mud and they wouldn't look stained. My T-shirt was from the job that laid me off, so I'd be actively seeking mud and jagged rocks to destroy it as soon as possible.
I got seven canisters of Go Snacks free from a conference in Chicago, and this was my first time caving since. They're junk food in supposedly crushproof, waterproof containers. There wouldn't be any real tests to the packaging on the trip, and there'd be plenty of snack food at the meeting afterward, but I had seven to burn through. I wasn�t bringing a pack, so I fit a Cheetos canister in my pocket.
Allen described this trip in an email as "hiking/caving" and after fifteen or twenty minutes of hiking, I realized why. My long pants were too thick for comfortable summer hiking. They did protect me from thorns and poison ivy, though. The rain was spitting initially, but died down as we got deeper in the forest.
We worked our way to a small hump of rock, where Yellow Frame was. This was a multi-entrance cave, so we�d crawl in the small opening in the rock in front of us, and emerge hundreds and hundreds of inches away.
Bubbles was the first person in the cave. Her two favorite caves are the diminutive Crooked Swamp and Onesquethaw, so this small, featureless hole might become her new world champion. She was wearing white shorts, which lost its whiteness quicker than Newark after the riots.
A full change of clothes was necessary to truly enjoy Yellow Frame. There wasn't a dramatic amount of mud, but a thin coating on all surfaces. My contact points were safe to get muddy (hands, soles of shoes, knee pads, the hated T-shirt) but a belly crawl would get all of my legs in contact with the mud, and Yellow Frame was barely high enough for hands and knees crawling. I brought a change of clothes, but I was assuming I'd wear my coveralls and save my currently-worn pants for the drive home. As it was, I had my polypro pants to go home in if I filthed up the brown ones. Best case scenario: I kept the brown pants clean.
Twenty feet of awkward hands and knees later, I was at the other entrance. I kept my butt low the whole time, which doubled my travel time from twenty seconds to forty. This was easily my shortest through trip. I�ve driven through toll booths that were longer.
Bubbles didn't bring a helmet, so I passed mine up to hers to check out a pinch on the same pathway as the crawl. I would have followed, but the crack was small and muddy. "Oh my God! This passage goes!" Uh huh, Bubbles. "And there's formations!" Yep, and the passage that connects to the Batcave. I'm not following.
A halo of fairies surrounded me as I crawled out Yellow Frame's second entrance. They were actually large winged insects flitting around the cool opening, but in the limited light, they looked like fairies.
There was a third entrance to Yellow Frame, along the path that Bubbles was wedged in. It wasn't big enough for people, but people at the third entrance hole could see the lights from the cavers inside.
There were two caves right next to the Yellow Frame entrances that made Yellow Frame look spacious. Allen lowered himself down the vertical shaft of the first, climbed back up, and said that it smelled like something died in there. It didn't look particularly muddy, though, so I went down myself.
I used my kneepads and feet as contact points, and I made it down without getting my butt dirty. A tiny canyon led off at the bottom of the shaft. At its widest, I could barely stick my helmeted head into. I might be able to worm a couple feet, but not without my coveralls. I kneed it back up and out.
Allen and Ray checked it the second tiny cave. The opening was a small horizontal rectangle you had to lie down to get through. It led to a awkwardly angled pit, and a bucket. There was a dig in progress. The temptation to crawl in the hole and gain another cave for the checklist was outweighed by my driver's seat gaining a embarrassing brown stain.
A long hike down a steep cliff side and close to a swamp took us to Mud Pond. It was not kind to our ankles. We were all sweating. I wished I had my two liters of water in my pack, instead of just a pocket full of Cheetos.
Mud Pond Cave was big enough to actually have rooms in it. The Bone Room, the Big Room, several big enough for multiple people to crowd in. Most of them, however, were belly crawls of some variety, and there was no way to get to these rooms without rubbing your butt against the walls like a cat in heat. I was content to squat in the foyer rooms. I made a mental Post-It to bring the torn jeans the next Mud Pond visit.
There were spiders all throughout Mud Pond. I'm used to dinky ant-sized spiders, and the odd daddy long legs. These cave dwellers had bodies the size of pearls, and multi-colored bodies. An egg sac hung on one of the low ceilings, a huge white raspberry. I was very tempted to let one of them bite me to see if I got superpowers.
I didn't bother opening the Cheetos until I crawled out of Mud Pond. The canister survived all the caving, as well as the gallon of sweat my pants were soaked in. Most people weren't hungry, or weren't fans of junk food, or wanted a drink more than a snack, or just didn't want to eat anything that spent the past two hours in my pants.
One or two Cheetos fell on the ground as I (and pretty much just I ate. I left them, to grow into mighty Cheeto trees that will nourish generations of cavers to come.
The forest was sparkling with hundreds of lightning bugs on our hike back. It looked like a special effect. It's rotten that I see nature's beauty and I instinctually think it looks like a movie, but the sparkling was nothing short of magical.
The sun was setting as we tromped out of the woods. Allen found the trail out, and we passed the abandoned barn on the way to the stashed cars. The barn looked like another movie set, specifically Sleepy Hollow.
Allen, thinking ahead, put plastic bags on the seats of his car. I had assorted bits of dirt of me, but nothing was wet. Woo hoo!, no polypro drive home. Allen dropped us off by our cars, and we made a six car parade to the meeting.
Bubbles and I were the first two through the grotto meeting door at 9:30. We intentionally postponing our change to clean clothes until after the meeting. We got a little round of applause. I wish Allen was in the room for it.
There were a few Mountain Dews left in the cooler among a sea of Coors Lights. I poured one down my throat, then a second, then a third. A couple hours of hiking in July heat will dehydrate you.
Allen quickly took the helm of the meeting, clicking through a slideshow presentation of Pennsylvania caves from the NSS. "This is vintage Allen Rush," Jeralin said, "Half an hour after leading a cave trip, he�s doing a slide show at the meeting."
The best part of the whole trip was that it was on found time. I still had a full weekend ahead of me (I went caving with Allen and Bubbles again on Saturday), and didn't even miss most of the grotto meeting.