Mole People

Steve coming down a "practice" chimney

 A couple of days after Thanksgiving.... Lynn, Steve S, and myself, headed to southern Minnesota for some caving. We met up with several others as well as our "guide", Al at the entrance to the cave. We had to wait for the whole group to assemble and as a result got a late start which sucked. Steve and I were really anxious to get in the cave. Lynn on the other hand is not super into caves and  I'm sure would have rather spent the day at a coffee shop or at home relaxing. Being the wonderful husband that I am, I dragged her along so we could spend "quality time" together. She did have fun anyway, although she did hurt her knee and was on the brink of a nasty cold.

Steve and Al and cool feature above

Dave, Steve, Me, Al in the Hanging Garden Room

The large group split into two groups and we were off. Once inside we preceded to get lost and left our cave packs behind at the start of a tight crawl. This led to a fun adventure off-route as we tried to find a different way back to our packs. Al is a experienced leader in this cave, we really weren't lost per say, but did end up seeing some areas that were unexpected, such as Timber Hall and an old dig site.The area around Timber Hall is a long, very tall "hall way" which if not for all the chock stones wedged in what we used as the floor would be a straight drop to the river below some thirty feet or more.

 After we got back to the packs we were very close to the entrance and voted to have a pee break top side, instead of  using our pee bottles underground and have to carry them around with us for the remainder of the trip. We had lunch with the other group who had enough caving for the day. They were mostly first time cavers led by Dave G. After lunch Lynn wasn't feeling up to any more caving so Al, Dave, Steve, and I headed back in for another hour and a half for some more exploring before we all headed home. PS anyone interested in caving in Minnesota should check out the Minnesota Speleological Survey. It's cheap to join (20$ per year, per family) and the only way your getting into stuff like this.

Lynn, in Timber Hall

This is a large crawl 

Proof I was there

Before heading out  (clean)