Day: February 24, 2000

Blowing Cave Trip Report
Feb. 24, 2000
by Brad Ricks

We met unusually at 9:00 a.m. behind Burruss Hall . . . and it was just Me (brad) Jimmy, Justin and a new guy named J.J.

So naturally, I figured others were confused with the Thursday night time change. I wrote a note and left it on the door, for the 10:00 gang to catch, and meet up with us. Fortunately Ben, Cecilia, Lindsey and maybe Brice saw it and went to the cave later on. Back to us….we went to Rich’s of course, where he was busily preparing for his Thursday night party (playing Nintendo, that is). After spending half an hour trying to find just two working headlamps, and then another half-hour looking for a helmet for them, we left for Blowing Cave.

First we swung by Burruss looking for the 10:00ers. But Ben, CeCe and Lindsey hadn’t arrived yet. So we went on to Blowing cave on our mission to get past the stream passage and to the back of the cave. First of course, the four of us each went in the three sisters on the side of the road, but they were rather small, and we came out to go to blowing after just a few minutes. I couldn’t even fit into one of them….well, maybe it was more of a choice not to, as it was filled with debris, and didn’t smell right.

On into Blowing, we all slopped through the mud for a while on our way to the back – Justin loves the mud. And at the back we slid right on down into the stream, which was relatively warm for the time of year – obviously a 55-degree underground deal. 30 feet through the stream and we had to crawl through it on hands and knees – in about 6-10 inches of water. Let me tell you – this trip was wet. This was the kind of wet that your Georgia in-laws have when they’re out fishin’ and Uncle Skeeter thinks it would be funny if he kicked Aunt Bertha off the boat, but she’s so big and clumsy that it flips the boat and all the in-laws into the lake.

Anyway, after traversing this stream for a good half-hour, we reached the biggest room in the cave. And to get a better view at this room, we had to climb up a muddy incline a good 50 or 60 feet. At the top, were some very cool mud formations, and ground that looked untouched. We all spread out on big rocks around this room for our lights out. It was at this time that all four of us immediately began to hear the other cavers. Ben, Cecilia and Lindsey were on their way towards us. We could almost make out the conversations, and heard them approaching nearer and nearer along the stream passage. At one point we heard them all laugh, and knew that Ben had just graced them either with a story of Bedford or a joke about a horse in a bar. About an hour later, we still heard them all talking, but didn’t seem to be getting much closer. We figured they must have turned back, not wanting to get too wet in the stream, so we went on in search of the back of the cave. Turns out the farthest we were willing to go, as the water was now up to Waist level, was just behind us, so we turned around, realizing that we all must definitely be insane and that we were the only people in the cave the whole time.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Blowing cave is haunted and scary. The new guy, J.J, peed himself, and will never be seen by any of us again. Do not ever go to Blowing. There are dead people walking, talking and laughing in the back of that cave!!!

Alright – so we left the cave, careless about the mud and slop, as we were soaked, and couldn’t even stand up without falling back down, so out of the cave we went, to change outside where it was an oh so comfortable 50 or 60 degrees! So naturally we sat around there in out undies for a good while before leaving. Then we left.