Chris Haydel, Jason Kern, Kyle Lapczynski, Erin Baker, Daron Salzer

The culvert entrance was taking water but didn’t seem excessively high.  Water flowed below my feet as I ducked around the previously, pried open gate and walked along the corrugated metal noting that the culvert height was indeed taller than Kyle had told his friends last night (it’s probably about 7’ in diameter).  After 100’ ft of culvert, we entered the cave. 

As expected, Kyle and his group where nowhere to be seen.  We traversed down the canyon passage passing around the curved and sometimes smoothly projecting limestone walls.  We crawled up and over the beautiful flowstone and rimstone cascades and continued onward.  I hadn’t been here for almost 2 years!  As I passed through the winding, walking canyon passage, I noted where I’d photographed Kyle and Sara way back in 2002.  It really doesn’t seem that long ago.  I can’t believe it’s been 4 years!!!  Fuck! I’m getting old. 

We met Kyle and Erin not far after we passed below the upper level leading to Doghill.  They were sitting on ledges waiting our arrival.  From there, I led our group of five to the Upper Level connection and explained to Kyle that we were going to tour over to the Doghill side.  I remember that Nate and I had originally had trouble finding that hole.  If you’re looking, it’s a pretty obvious small hole about 8 feet above the floor on the right side of the passage on your way in.  I led the group through narrow canyons turning right directly up the hole and then taking two lefts.  We could hear water as we neared the crossover.  I pointed out the hammer-shaped rock.  The crew agreed with me how neat it is that we’re now several feet above the passage we’d just traversed. 

We crossed the crevice in the floor and someone helped Erin up the mud climbup on the other side.  Then we walked along wonderfully nice, dry, canyon passage with slightly encrusted Gypsum walls.  We hopped over a few breakdown blockages and eventually climbed down into pooled water which seemed a little higher than normal (probably a little over knee deep).  We sludged through the water battling the shoe-sucking muck floor with every step.  After more dry passage and a little more wetness and brief crawling we reached a segment of walking passage where I told everyone about the narrow crevice passage we were about to enter and how the Berg Squeeze had evidently separated the two caves long ago.  We slithered through the narrow, slightly S’ing, limestone walls and crawled through shallow water before doing a tighter less awkward squeeze and going through what I believe to be the Berg Squeeze.  I’ve never thought it was much of a squeeze.  A short stooping room later we emerged into standing passage once again. 

Once everyone was through, I introduced them to Doghill and led them along a hundred feet down walking passage to the rope climbdown.  I explained to them what lie upstream and downstream and told them the climbdown was rather tricky.  Everyone wanted to do it so I led the way down and spotted each person.  The first couple steps down are easy but then the wall bells out and your next foothold is probably 4’ down.  I helped Erin, Kyle, and Chris find their footing here.  Jason and Daron came down like a pros.  We first toured upstream where I showed them the bathtub.  Daron climbed the flowstone slope with the aid of an old rope and checked out the area above. 

With him back down, we traversed a few hundred feet downstream following the tall canyon passage.  We walked longer than I remembered but soon saw the water disappearing under flowstone and we all huddled around a natural flowstone funnel into a narrow ~2’ wide by ~8” slot.  Water appeared to be less than a foot below the top of the hole. 

I noticed that the air smelled slightly of chlorine in the Doghill side.  I explained to everyone how the Bedford Water Company randomly dumps their sediment tank down the drybed leading to the Doghill entrance.  During such an event, I’m told water levels raise 1-2 feet.  As I judge it, there are only a few places in the cave that you would be affected.  From the Doghill entrance, the first area is the wet crawl.  I recall 30’ of crawling leading up to a bathtub with 6” of air for 10’.  I personally believe if water levels came up in this section that I could swim downstream to air.  The next section is the bathtub near Berg’s squeeze which I remember being 4” of air and rather short. 

Below us, was one of the two spots you’d really be in trouble.  As I recall, once through the small hole you crawl for 200 – 300’ in low passage that would sump in many places.  Further downstream, the passage opens again.  I really like that section of cave.  It has some nice formations, large majestic canyon, and some big breakdown blocks.  Near the end a gravel belly crawl leads to a duckwalk in water which later becomes walking in water before eventually getting very sumpy.  This is another section of cave you’d probably be in trouble if the water rose.  I’ve only been to downstream Doghill once that I can recall. 

Anyway, after our discussion, we walked back to the climbup.  Daron went up first and climbed quite well.  Kyle needed help getting his feet in the footholds but also climbed well.  Erin did equally as well as Kyle and gave it a valiant effort before asking for a foothold.  Chris only needed his back pushed against mostly for reassurance.  I thought Jason was doing quite well when he suddenly slid backdown and stumbled backwards into the water.  Luckily, he was uninjured.  He fed his feet into the footholds this time and made it up fine.  I pulled myself up using my arms, planted my feet and pulled myself over the top quickly.  It seemed easier than I’d remembered.  It’s only about 10’ up. 

We traversed back to the Donnehue side.  Kyle’s group decided to exit.  We heard voices in the distance and Kyle later told me he ran into a helmetless group of spelunkers from Fort Wayne.  He tried to discourage their continued exploration but they thought they knew what they were doing.  Chris, Jason, and I continued downstream to the Natural Bridge passage and crawled and climbed under and over natural bridges until we reached a spot where flowstone devours all but a low crawl to the left.  I hand and kneed ahead until I reached a large chunk of limestone blocking my path requiring me to dip my chest in water to slide through the 6” of air to the other side. 

From there, the passage opened briefly before becoming a crawlway once again.  We did a few more short crawlways and eventually reached a section of tall, majestic canyon which somewhat resembled a dome.  Not far ahead, the passage changed drastically.  We entered an old phreatic tube that began as a stoop walk and varied in size until later opening back to walking.  We passed an infeeding side passage and soon the circular shape and even solution was a clear giveaway of underwater formation.  Soonafter, we reached  a walking section where the passage split left and right of pooled water.  I chose right and soon reported that left also went to the same place.  On our way out, we passed two in-feeding sides where rimstone dams pooled water a couple feet above the passage floor.  We walked in water back and forth and soon saw entrance light.