Day: February 8, 2003

Sharid Needs Sleep
Hell’s Breath Cave
Feb. 8, 2003
by Jared Bowie

The day began by waking up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning (quite an oddity for a college student). I was in charge of the wake up call for Sharid so i called him up and he picked up the phone on the first ring. I learned from him that he had not gone to sleep at all from the night before (not quite an oddity for a college student). So i proceeded to get ready and drove over to pick up Sharid. We headed out with a quick stop at Mr J’s Bagels for breakfast and began the car ride listening to some Pearl Jam.

After about 1 1/2 hours of driving we were driving up the snow covered dirt road to the Germany Valley Fieldhouse. The civic did make it, we parked and went into the house. We sat around a while talked and were eventually assigned to a dig at Hell’s Breath Cave.

We drove over and were dropped off with Steve and expecting one more. Sharid and I went in for a look at the cave it was about 15ft so far with about 10 of those feet downward. It ended at a crack in the wall blowing a good amount of air. Steve told us that he had discovered it and believed there was a hopeful possibility of it connected to Hellhole. We were also informed that on good days you could see the steam go out of the cave 6 ft high.

Our first task was to widen the entrance. We dug out some debris and began working on a huge rock when Tom showed up. He had the right tools to remove the rock. We then dug a little out of the beginning of the cave to have more room to move around. After that we all headed in and worked on the crack. We progressed about 4-5 ft in the days time to a small opening about 3 ft tall and 2 ft wide. From there all that could be seen was the crack going back further with no sign of it opening up and a small drain going to the left. By that time everyone was ready to leave and Hell’s Breath was left for another day.