Patton Cave Thru-Crawl

“well, i couldnt get a commitment on rrg, nobody showed up at morgan-monroe (after being invited by a friend from "the other side"), so i opted to solo in deam to my favorite spot.

started at blackwell horsecamp, took grubb ridge trail to the 545 trail, looped back and turned left on grub to the patton cave trail, and hiked to the high camp on the ridge. about a 2 hr hike in, arrived around a quarter after 2. after setting up camp, went down to explore patton cave. got my sox wet wearing my crox, so went back up for boots. went thru the part where you have to climb up and straddle, then stopped at the small room right before the cave turns into a crawl-space. after some deliberation about how muddy and wet i wanted to get, decided the crawl-space did not look very long at all (it wasnt, maybe 30 feet), and scuttled across, staying off my belly. came out into another small room, did sort of curly-q (at least, thats how i remember it)up and around to the right, and followed the passage to a larger room where there were the remains of a fire-ring. went on a little more to the paranoia-inducing exit at the other end and out. very cool.”

“Cool.”

“Uhg........caveman”

“Sounds like a good time. Sorry we missed you at Morgan-Monroe. We did the Low Gap trail. Man, was it windy as all get out up the ridge's yesterday. Fortunately, it died down in the early evening so could still make a campfire. Anyway, congrats on the mini-spelunk!!”

“hey cnc. i called charlie and he punked out. he mentioned some "other people" but i didnt know who it was, beside some guy named tool-man or some such. what time did you arrive at mm?”

“We got to the MM forest office right around 11:00 central time. We left the car there at the hdqtrs. and the took the Tecumseh trailhead over to the Low Gap which we did counter clockwise. We kept an eye out for Charlie (and his son) but figured that they didn't make it because of the rain Friday night.”

“right around 11:00 central time"

which is noon indiana time, right?”

“It was noon yesterday the rest of Indiana time. As of today, I'm not sure, up here it is 4:55 right now, I can't remember if you guys move your clocks forward or not.”

“hey...that did sound like ALOT of fun.”

“My memories of my lone caving expection are of dust, crawling through tiny holes, not knowing how to find the way, and finally lucking out and standing at the bottom of the waterfall at the deepest part of the cave. Awesome!

But when I finally got out, I knew it would never happen again. Other than commercial caverns, that is.”

“I told ya that Toolman guy was strange! lol

Actually after locking my keys in my Jeep, paying a locksmith $65 to unlock it for me AND THEN realizing I left my hiking boots at home, I said the heck with it and went back home!!”

“ahhhhhhhh... UPluver = Toolman. ;-) gotcha!”

“So how wet and muddy did you get? And how did you know you wouldn't be lost and stuck in there foreever?”

“i had already explored 90 percent of the cave. i had been just inside the other entrance last year. it was just a matter of connecting ends”

“Anyone have any plans to go to either HNF or back to Morgan-Monroe this coming weekend?”