Scary Spelunking

 I don't like small spaces. I don't like them in the dark. I don't like spaces so small you can't wear your backpack because it won't fit.

Add going underground on a mountain where nobody monitors, nobody knows who went in or who left or who died or is waiting down there with a gun? No. No me gusta.

Peer pressure. I went in.

Dude. Cave = terrifying. Like 10 of us and 3 flashlights. My friends were great about letting me be near a light (because of the yelling that would come otherwise? Perhaps).

Started off with a massive jump/slide that you barely fit through. I wanted OUT but there's no way I'd get back up there. 3 lights. That meant quite a few of us were in the dark more often than comfortable.

It was going okay, I was no longer about to pass out from terror, when one of the guys fell and gashed his head on a rock. Once we got flashlights over there and another guy fixed him up with a first aid kit one of them had so intelligently brought and I checked him out, we decided he & at least 1 more needed to go back up rather than through the gave. 4 of 'em went, leaving 5 of us in the cave. I lost it for a moment because I wanted OUT but it was simpler to stay.

It got kinda awesome, actually. It was still scary but we had 2 flashlights and 5 of us so the ratio was better and after a little bit, I chilled out somewhat. I did want to kill 2 friends when they urged us to NOT follow the occasional painted arrow - if you don't follow, you can end up god knows where or at a dead end and who knows if you can climb back up.

Unfortunately most of the photos from this have people in them & I don't want to post pics of people that you can recognize. One of the 2 people who took photos was in the group that went back up early on after the injury so there aren't many photos to choose from either.

This first pic is from near the end of our spelunking adventure; there's an exit about... 30 feet above his head. He tried to climb it but failed. We went out a different "exit" that was a do-able climb.

The second pic is from the beginning. He's going down that hole where his feet are in the picture. He's 6'1". It was not an easy fit.