Post by plainasty on Jun 21, 2008 0:05:36 GMT -5
I got the opportunity to go caving with John Lamar Cole last month. John is a director for the N.S.S.. I was going to the cave one day to look for a passage, he was there chatting with Tom and we traded information. He was kind enough to come down on May 10th to take me to some parts of the cave that I hadn't even attempted yet. Myself and four of my best caving friends Dustin, Jesse, Aaron and Dylan were all stoked (excited) to see new passage.
We entered through the Minton Hollow entrance which for a good while was some pretty decent walking passage the ceilings were covered with crionoids I thought that was pretty neat. There were several spots in which I know I'm going to need more practice on before attempting to take anyone because they were pretty tricky as far as staying on path. Lots of breakdown and stuff. There was one spot that took John about twenty minutes to get us through but he told us that the first successful time to get to the spot took him nine hours. NINE HOURS! I loved it. I mean my passion grew that much more just thinking about how thrilling it must have been to finally figure that out. We were in the Big Passage prior to this where John showed us a paleo passage with tons of helictites in it, something that I hadn't seen before. There was one that had a diameter of about two feet. We also got to see Cosmic Dome which was a 60 some ft tall borehole. (I think thats what they are called) the diameter at the bottom was about 15 ft. and it just went up as far as the eye can see.
We did a through trip from Minton to Garbage Pit. A six mile trip. In my caving career this was by far the most amazing trip I've been on. It's opened my eyes to the science and study of cave systems and I am strongly considering studying speleology. Hell maybe some day I'll be able to hitch a ride to Mammoth Cave, I still haven't been there yet.
My fiends loved the trip as well. I was surprised that someone of John's stature could be so down to earth and willing to take five 20 year olds on a big trip like this. I look forward to more trips with him and more experience learning all the ins and outs of Sloans.
If anyone on the forum is ever over this way to go caving feel free to let me know ahead of time, I wanna meet new people in the society that have this passion that I do.
Well everyone, be careful and cave safely.
MBII
We entered through the Minton Hollow entrance which for a good while was some pretty decent walking passage the ceilings were covered with crionoids I thought that was pretty neat. There were several spots in which I know I'm going to need more practice on before attempting to take anyone because they were pretty tricky as far as staying on path. Lots of breakdown and stuff. There was one spot that took John about twenty minutes to get us through but he told us that the first successful time to get to the spot took him nine hours. NINE HOURS! I loved it. I mean my passion grew that much more just thinking about how thrilling it must have been to finally figure that out. We were in the Big Passage prior to this where John showed us a paleo passage with tons of helictites in it, something that I hadn't seen before. There was one that had a diameter of about two feet. We also got to see Cosmic Dome which was a 60 some ft tall borehole. (I think thats what they are called) the diameter at the bottom was about 15 ft. and it just went up as far as the eye can see.
We did a through trip from Minton to Garbage Pit. A six mile trip. In my caving career this was by far the most amazing trip I've been on. It's opened my eyes to the science and study of cave systems and I am strongly considering studying speleology. Hell maybe some day I'll be able to hitch a ride to Mammoth Cave, I still haven't been there yet.
My fiends loved the trip as well. I was surprised that someone of John's stature could be so down to earth and willing to take five 20 year olds on a big trip like this. I look forward to more trips with him and more experience learning all the ins and outs of Sloans.
If anyone on the forum is ever over this way to go caving feel free to let me know ahead of time, I wanna meet new people in the society that have this passion that I do.
Well everyone, be careful and cave safely.
MBII
