Day: January 27, 2007

Into the Belly of the Beast and Squeezing out the Other Side
Jan. 27, 2007
by Adam Gosney

It was a nice day to go caving. Breezy, cool, but not too chilly. We left Buruss at around 10:30 and after driving the twisty roads of West Virginia arrived at the entrance to Trout. Then Bob, Adam, Geoff, Katie, Jay, Tavia, Bess, Dan, Nick entered the wonderfully easy cave of Trout – or so it seemed.

The first bit of Trout was fairly uneventful, despite Adam doing his traditional tripping inside a cave, with his fall being prevented by the quick action of Katie. Geoff made it a point to say “I found a hole” every ten minutes, which usually got a “Oh Geoff” from everyone else. We climbed over some chasms for the first 2 hours inside the cave, with Bess and Tavia having the most trouble due to their height. A bunch of us rather tall gentlemen mocked the vertically challenged females, but our time would soon come. Upon visiting the first art room Adam threw mud at several people and made Bob “horny” (putting horns on top of his helmet). Geoff made a massive snowman that he made sure to put up rather high so no one would mess with it. We doubled back to the main room where we ducked down into another section of the cave – and this is where everything went wrong.

Bob felt no restrictions during this trip, so he decided to explore, and the rest of the cavers paid the price. We went threw a crawl so small that Adam almost dislocated his shoulder and which Bob called out “Come on Adam, you’re being born again!” After unsuccessfully searching for the square room we found another art room, which Bob had not seen in over 3 years. Geoff made a dinosaur, but more on that later. We continued to travel deeper into Trout, now inside the cave for almost 4 hours. Bob led us into another extremely tight crawl where one could not even spread elbows out more than six inches. This next section was extremely muddy, and Jay and Bob left everyone else to their own devices. Adam led the remaining group around to a part literally seeping with mud, which Adam once again took it upon himself to throw more at Geoff and Katie. This time Adam almost lost one of his boots in the mud. Bob wanted to travel farther into the cave, but got to a point where a crawl was so tight he sent us all back. As we waited for Bob and Jay to return a bat awoke and started flying around, which spooked all of us somewhat. When Bob came back the right side of his shirt was completely ripped off. Bob at this point decided it was time to go back.

On our way back Adam led the group initially, but when he stopped the group to wait for Bob discovered Bob took an alternative route and got ahead of everyone. Adam led the group to the second crawl where Geoff was sitting on the side with his cave light off. Adam noticed him and said nothing. Katie followed behind Adam, saw Geoff, who said “hi” and waved, to which Katie jumped and screamed. This in turn scared Adam, who screamed “Jesus Christ!” The final crawl was a brutal one, with everyone giving every ounce of energy left to get through it. Adam banged his back at the end on the wall, and Geoff let out a “silent but deadly,” but everyone got through it. On the return to the second art room again Adam crawled on all fours. Geoff yelled “watch out for my dinosaur,” to which an exhausted Adam yelled “Fuck your dinosaur!” The rest of the trip saw an exhausted group of cavers stumbling and carefully bumbling back to the entrance. After emerging at the entrance at 5:30, over 5 and a half hours after entering, everyone headed for D-Hall, muddy and all. A good summary of this”easiest cave” extravaganza is quite simple: “Trout, it kicks your a$$!”