I went up to Boston, Mass this weekend for a girl weekend with my best friend. She is a non-caver and lives in Alaska, so we figured, we would meet up in Boston and do the tourist thing. She knows I like to go caving and said she didn't mind if I went. So I contacted caver Steve of the Boston Grotto. I met up with Steve and his wife, Joanna (I hope I am getting everyone's names right) at a park and ride on the Mass Pike and from there we followed them to another exit to meet up with Laura, another caver from Mass. We continued on into New York and got off the interstate and down some back roads thru small towns til we reached Clarksville. We met up with 4 folks from Canada, Stephanie, Julie, Alex, and Julian (again I hope I got the names right). One of them had only been in a cave once, and two were 'cave virgins'. So now that we were all together you'd think we would go caving, but we had lunch first. There just happens to be a restuarant called June's right by the cave, so we ate, they had pretty good food. And then we moved the cars up to the 'official' parking area, so we wouldn't be taking up all the spots at the restaurant. My friend and Steve's wife both waited in the cars cuz they had some work and studying to do (Steve's wife is a caver though).
So we walked up this nice trail and there was an info kiosk with a map of the cave and some caving safety info, etc.
Clarksville Cave is managed by the Northeastern Cave Conservancy. It is a popular horizontal cave in Albany County, NY in the town of Clarksville. It has about 4800 feet of passage and 3 entrances. I think it was the Ward entrance that we entered. Anyway it pretty much puts you in the middle of the cave.
First we headed to the part of the cave called the Lake Room. And it had a lake in it.
The lake was 12' deep. There were some little side passages but they were in waist deep water or higher, and since we made it to this part of the cave in like 35 mins and we had more cave to do I decided not to get all wet just yet. Oh so as soon as we got in the cave we could hear the water. Yep it was stream passage. It was about ankle deep. And about 47ºF. Brrrr. So we hung out in the lake room for a little bit and then turned around and headed back towards the entrance. So we passed the entrance and headed to the other end of the cave toward an area called the bath tub. I think this end had more pretty stuff to look at. There were some fossils of crinoids (I call these cave cheerios cuz that's what they remind me of) and actually got to see some that were still long pieces still intact. Also saw some cross sections of horn coral, and other bi-valve shells. Getting to see fossils of shells reminded me of Florida caving. Oh and as far as to what the limestone in the cave was like, it was hard and smooth (kinda like the rocks in the entrance of PettiJohns Cave up in TAG). We also saw some little tiny bats here and there thru out the cave.
Past the bath tub area was another body of water, this one was about mid thigh deep on me, and very, very cold. But on the other side a little ways away was a nice 2 or 3 foot waterfall that was about 10 feet long. So getting to see that was worth the the thigh deep water.
So then we headed back out to the entrance we entered in. We were in the cave for just over 3 hours. It was dark out when we got out (the sun sets at like 4:30pm up there). We all gathered around for our after photo and then changed out of our wet and muddy clothes. My toes and butt were numb. I cranked up the heat in my rental car as much as I could without catching my non-caving friend on fire as she sat in the passenger seat.
It was a nice cave and I had a really nice time. I liked being able to go on a trip with brand new cavers cuz I got to point things out to them. Also since they were from Canada (one just moved there from France last year and another was from Romania originally) I had to explain about yelling rock if you knock a loose rock or something down so the person behind you knows to watch out, but I had to tell them to make sure they yelled it in english and not French. I am used to bi-lingual caving, but usually in Spanish and not French,. So I learned rock in French,
roche. Everyone was super nice and did a great job caving. I hope the newbies stick with it and get to do more caving.
Oh and this was my 50th cave!!!