Spookyness

Ted the Caver (Part #5 and Part #6)

February 13

It's amazing what a couple good meals and a little sleep can do for someone's attitude. Even though we still had memories of the strange noise fresh in our minds, we relit our fire of enthusiasm. The other side of the passage seemed so close. We were sure this would be the day. We got to the cave and started to work our way down to the hole. Getting back into the darkness of the cave brought back the memories of the night before. The sight of the circle of rock illuminated by our headlamps, the smell of dirt in the air, the sound we made as we crawl across the rock. Once we reached the entrance to Floyd's Tomb, however, we were once again ready to blaze the trail leading to an undiscovered part of the cave. We immediately noted the presence of the breeze blowing out of the hole, and the rumbling.

The bullpin sticking out of its hole was an obvious sign of where we needed to begin work for the day. B took over where he left off the day before. I took up residence in the same spot I occupied the night before, even though I was already well rested and wanting to start work. B was making the hammer sing with each blow. After a mere 2 or 3 minutes he let out a cheer. He turned to reveal a handful of rock that used to be attached to the cave. He was breathing heavy, but had a big smile on his face. So did I. For the time the strange noise had been forgotten, and the vision of success captured our attention.

The lower left-hand corner of the hole had been giving us grief because of the thickness of the wall at that point. We felt that if we could just remove that corner, we might be on our way inside. B now held in his hand the crumbled remains of the corner. Our excitement consumed us as we examined the hole. I took the hammer and pounded away at the surface of the hole. The idea was to remove the jagged edges that would take their toll on my skin. The size looked right! Now, the moment we had been working for.

I cautiously approached the entrance to Floyd's Tomb. I decided the best way to enter the small hole was to place one arm over my head, turn my head sideways, and slowly work my way in. I soon determined this was not going to work. The hole was SMALL. If I was going to make it in without widening the hole any more, I was going to have to put both arms over my head, in a diving position, turn my head sideways, and "slip" into the Tomb. The width of the entrance was the limiting factor. The height was sufficient. The arms-overhead position flared my shoulder blades out, but there was still room to get in. Plus, the arms-overhead gave me the best squeeze side to side.

In order to enter straight into the hole I stood on my feet and bent over to get level with the entrance. My knees were bent and the position was uncomfortable, sort of a semi-squatting position, bent at the waist with arms overhead. Plus, I had to slightly turn my upper torso to the left, in a counter-clockwise rotation, to negotiate the angle of the entrance.

I got my arms through the entrance with minor scrapes. Next came my head. By keeping it turned sideways I was able to get it in, for the most part, up to my shoulders. When I got to my shoulders I could feel the rocks touching all around my shoulders and chest. It was not stopping me, but I was definitely scraping many surfaces of my body. I decided to just push through, keeping in mind that I was going to have to come back out eventually. The pain was not too bad, and I was IN! Well, my upper body was in. At least I could get a good idea what the Tomb was going to be like.

[To the side is] Here’s a flattering photo of my best side. Notice the size of the area we had to work in. The ledge overhead was an obstacle.

Once inside the Tomb I had a few inches all around me in which to position my body. This was the largest part of the passage, and it was conveniently located right at the beginning of the crawl. That gave me a little room to get positioned to crawl further into the passage. Inside the Tomb gave me a whole new outlook of what it was going to be like to crawl through. Even though this was the largest part of the crawl it was still small. I could move my head around freely, but every direction that I turned I was staring at a wall of solid rock. When I spoke to B my voice sounded muffled, like I was talking in a small box. I could rest my chest on the passage floor, but the rocks were uncomfortable. I turned my head to look further ahead, but couldn't see past the wall of rocks I had built the day before. The squeeze toward the end of the passage was closer now, and appeared even narrower. I didn't know if I could squeeze through or not. I knew it would be close. I wanted to crawl further into the passage. First, however, I had to work to get some of the loose rocks that were lying on the passage floor out of my way. I was disappointed to find out that most of the rocks that looked loose were actually attached to the floor. I was hoping to be able to just scrape them out of the way. I had pushed the sledgehammer into the passage before me, so at this point I used it to push the rock "wall" we had made further back in the passage. Then I dragged the sledge back and forth across the floor to move any loose rocks, or break up the solid ones. By sliding the head of the hammer under the squeeze, I determined that the narrowest part of the squeeze was about seven inches high. I figured we would have to do some work before I could slip through. The entire time I had my head in the passage, B was just kicking back, listening to my descriptions and progress reports. At some point he snapped the photo shown above. Thanks B. Up to this point the size of the passage was not too big of a deal. I was in an incredibly small passage, but only my upper body was in, and since it was the largest part of the passage, and my arms could move freely, I was pretty calm. Then it was time for a push.