Oak City Cave

 A few weeks ago I took the kids to a cave I've been meaning to go to for many years: Oak City Cave. The entrance is a little crawlway. It's also known as a rattlesnake den, so I was glad that it was pretty late in the season and we didn't see any snakes.

We did see lots of pillbugs. I couldn't believe how many were in the entrance!

There were also lots of cobwebs.

And, unfortunately, lots of graffiti. I don't think some people realize how fragile cave environments are. The cave walls don't have the sun and wind like outside rocks, so it takes so very long for anything to wear away. And it often takes so long for a cave and cave formations to form in the first place.

Not far from the entrance was a six-foot drop I was expecting. It was something too hard for the kids to negotiate by themselves, so I made them hasty harnesses out of webbing and gave them a belay. Desert Girl was not at all sure about going down the big hole, but did fine.

At the bottom we were rewarded with some cave pretties.

The cave was larger than I expected. We didn't even have time to see it all before we were due out. Passages went in several directions, and even though they weren't long, we wanted to explore them thoroughly. I was very glad to have my kneepads.

We found another small pit, but it was easier to negotiate. I was starting to get quite warm by this point. I didn't have a thermometer, but guessed that the cave temperature was in the mid to upper 50s.

The kids found a cave cricket. They are becoming well-trained cave biologists!

When we came out of the cave, our nearby surface contact greeted us with bottles of water. That sure was welcome! Then it was time to call another surface contact. It's always good to let people know where you're going! It was a fun cave. I just wish that people who went into it treated it a little better.