Caving with the Duck

[Elidor]

My friend Duck and I have been doing some caving lately. I thought I'd share a couple pics.


That's me at the entrance of a local cave we did a few days ago.
I like to think I’m in good shape, but this cave kicked my ass. Duck and I have gone a couple miles underground several times, but we only got about 500 feet into this cave. It was pretty grueling.


Duck checks out some formations in the first room.

We stopped several times in the first two rooms to take photos of some decent formations, but after a bit of this, we put the camera away and did some serious caving, most of it crawling through very tight passage.


Hardhead in the second room.

After a while, we came to a 1 foot high belly crawl leading to a climbdown and through yet more tight passage before emerging in a canyon at the base of a pit. The pit is easily climbable and emerges at the base of an awkward climbdown from the main passage. Several miles of very challenging passage lie beyond a 75-foot belly crawl, but we didn't attempt it this time.



Duck proved himself worthy by slithering through some spots that are smaller than he is. No claustrophobe here! The Duck is man up! The squeeze pictured here is even harder to negotiate than it looks. (In fact, he's moving backward to negotiate it.) And this was only one of several. Just after this is an even tighter one.


Formations


Duck in one of the few walking passages.


Unusual formations

Friday I had the pleasure of a guided tour to the Cathedral Room in Blue Springs Cave, Tennessee's largest mapped cave, which is 34 miles long so far. It contains some of the best formations in the world, and it pretty well blew me away. A camera couldn't do it justice, but if you search for "blue springs cave" you'll see some amazing photos. It's always great to be underground. :thumbsup:

[woofless]

1. I always thought that skydiving was about the craziest

thing one could do, but looking at your post makes me want to find a perfectly good airplane to jump out of! No way I could abide the closeness of that hole, Bro. Good on 'ya.

Woof

[Elidor]

2. It's not that bad

It's all in the head. The only thing you have to fear, etcetera, etcetera...

[woofless]

3. Yup, I know. It's my head and I know how it works.

I can ride a motorcycle at 100 mph but will NOT go in a cave. Irrational to be sure, but.............

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

4. Oooh, pretty.