Mikes Cave
The weekend began on Friday again. The day before at the IUCC meeting Sean had asked me if I wanted to go to Mike’s Cave. I’d later asked Anmar about it and he told me we’d never find it because it was hidden so well. I also talked to Spike and got rough directions. I met Sean at Taco Bell at 3:00 that day and after a purchasing a couple tacos we were off to Mike’s. Dave had emailed me a permit so we didn’t even have to worry about the landowner calling the sheriff about our vehicle being parked there. Anyway, I quickly noticed that the GPS location was way off. It told me that the cave was about 6000 miles away. That was no good. So I tinkered with the GPS until it told me it was .18 miles away.
After packing all my stuff together I started down the hill and my cell phone rang. I was surprised I still had service. I kept going down the hill until it was apparent that the cell phone wasn’t go to retain service and stayed there until I was done with the call.
I was very determined that we were going to find this cave. We had about 1.5 hrs of daylight and we planned to spend as much daylight as it took to find it. We were both paying very close attention to the terrain. Brandon had told us that the entrance doesn’t look like a cave at all but Spike had said it was a sinkhole. We checked every sink hole on our way to the point. We didn’t see anything nearby the point that fit our description. So I started contouring at 800’ elevation around the hill. Eventually, we found some sinks again and I went from one to the next. Sean and I checked each one of these. By this point in time I was very far away from the GPS mark. We came across a sinkhole that was blowing air. It was ¼ a mile away from the GPS mark and it looked very much like a cave entrance to me so we didn’t think that was it. I contoured around a little farther and then contoured back the other way. I dug on a few of the sinks nearby the GPS point with no luck. It was starting to get chilly outside and we were losing light so Sean and I decided to give up on Mikes and go back to the blowing hole. I didn’t feel like suiting up so I slid down into the hole in my jeans. I soon flipped over and begin feeding myself face first into it to get a good look. It was tight.
I soon reported that I saw cave!!! I came back out, put on my coveralls, and slid back down the hole feet first. It was extremely slimy and the entrance was a little wider than the width of my chest. I’d brought my camera but quickly determined my hands were to sleazy to take pictures. After another short squeeze the passage opened into a wide hands and knees crawl with a dry mud floor. As we went in I looked for signs of previous visitation. Surely, this couldn’t have been overlooked. It was so obvious. Eventually, I saw a boot print in the dirt and also noted the imprint of rope but didn’t mention that because I wasn’t certain that was what it was. We also saw a station marker. We crawled ahead and it started getting tighter. We bellied over some coon shit and contorted ahead until I could see the passage was about 4” high on the left and 6” high on the right. It wasn’t passable. Sean had a heck of a time turning around but I managed to easily enough.
We went back to the larger passage and realized that we’d missed the correct way to go. We were soon in a room with a hole in the floor. We didn’t check that out but continued on ahead and soon encountered a pit. We now figured this was probably Mike’s Cave. We went further ahead and encountered another couple pits. On our way back out to get rope we went down the small hole in the first room. It was a fun climb down with a heavily decorated wall. At the bottom there was a room with a large drapery. There was also a hole that we popped through into walking canyon passage. We continued ahead until the floor dropped down about 12 feet. It didn’t look climbable. We went back out and got rope.
Upon reentering the cave, we rigged the first drop off of a large breakdown rock. Sean went down first and I followed. At the bottom the canyon passage continued upstream to the spot that we’d turned around because the floor dropped down. There was a spot where the water had cleaned away the mud and I picked up a small piece of St. Genevieve limestone and flint. Closer to the rope drop the passage was covered in popcorn. One formation on the floor was almost exploding with popcorn formations. There was a nearby area that had what kind of resembled cave pearls but I’ve seen better. Farther downstream the passage dropped off again. We were hoping we’d be able to rappell all the way down into it. It looked like a very nice shaft.
As Sean climbed back up he found an off shoot passage and he went to check it out. As I climbed up I noticed that the walls were eaten away along horizontal cracks. I realized this was probably shallowly bedded limestone and these spots were probably the cracks between the limestone blocks that were eaten out when there was water flowing in the pit. The limestone was bedded .5 – 3 feet thick as I climbed up. It was difficult to see the St. Genevieve limestone because much of the cave was covered in sticky mud. I got off at the spot Sean had and we checked it out until it ended. I have no recollection of what this passage did. I do remember that when I got back to the rope I felt a sinking oh shit feeling. I hadn’t secured the rope to anything and didn’t see it. I’d felt rather out of it the whole trip and had just shaken an overwhelming feeling of frustration as I begin to enjoy the cave. Luckily, the rope was just around the corner. I climbed up and Sean followed. My rope was now slimed.
As I de-rigged, Sean reported that the next drop would be a rigging challenge. I said that was good because I needed rigging challenges. There was a rock chock stoned with mud between the wall and ceiling ledge that others had rigged off of. I wasn’t sure that looked like a very reliable rig. I rigged around an large, immobile, breakdown protrusion right next to the pit edge. The low rig point would make getting on and off rope a little trickier but this wouldn’t be a problem for Sean and I. I’d brought in a piece of webbing which I rigged and re-belayed off of the chocked rock. I rappelled down and found myself in the room I’d been in before. I climbed back up and Sean determined he wasn’t going to drop it.
The next drop had even fewer rigging places. I was eyeing a thin wide breakdown slab but didn’t like it. At first the shape of it looked decent to hold the rope in place but the point that would have held the rope in place was fractured and came off easily. I thought a wrap one, pull one would probably work but didn’t really like it. Below, there was a short climb down among stalagmites and the pit dropped off. Ahead, the floor dropped off and there was a ledge on both sides. It was too wide to chimney. Everything was loose. The ceiling and walls didn’t even look good for bolting. There was a bit of a ledge to the right and a 3 ft high mound of breakdown and mud. It was doable but didn’t look very pretty. Nothing was singularly secure. I spread my weight across my arms using the conglomerate for balance and worked out along the ledge to look ahead. It looked like it pinched ahead but I needed a brighter light to be sure. I didn’t see anywhere to rig down here either and scuffled back to safe ground. I went down the short climb down with a small piece of rock, blinked my left eye to better judge where I wanted to through it, and chucked it ahead. It met its mark. It missed the pit floor and fell down further in the area that we’d before noted looked like a really nice shaft. It splash landed confirming that was the deepest part of the cave and the last pit. We decided not to mess with rigging anything here because we wouldn’t be able to drop straight down into the last shaft and the climb down drop would just get us where we’d already been. We routed and were quickly out of the cave. As I exited I noted that it was kind of neat looking up from the sinkhole floor seeing the stars perimetered by dirt blackness. It was a beautiful, cool, crisp, dark night in the woods.
Sean changed and I got my stuff together. About 200 feet away from the pit I realized I wasn’t certain that I had my GPS. I confirmed that I didn’t and walked back down to the pit to find it. I was astounded that I walked directly back to the pit. I didn’t see my GPS. I shoved leaves aside and was starting to wonder if it wasn’t in my pack after all when I spotted it out of the corner of my eye. I’d wanted to get a better GPS point on the pit anyway so I was glad I’d left it here. For what its worth, the GPS said the accuracy was quite good when I took the point. I climbed back up the hill to Sean.
As we progressed up Sean looked at the sky and about shit his pants. We could see the northern lights again. This was the most spectacular display that Sean had ever seen. He was very impressed. The left part of the sky looked like cloudy white rays of sunshine shining from a symbolic sun. To the right, diagonal lines paralleled each other across the sky. There wasn’t much coloration. They were mostly light white with a hint of red. This is the second time that I’d seen the northern lights. I wasn’t real impressed but still thought it was kind of neat. I want to see them farther north when they’re green and red and more obviously dancing across the sky. We pin-balled off of trees, logs, and branches as we ascended the hill in darkness looking up towards the sky. Eventually, the woods got really thick and we turned our lights back on. We came to a trail and followed it until we reached a huge log and brush pile. Could this possibly be a sign that the nearby owner doesn’t like people coming this way? Anyway, Sean called a bunch of people to tell them about the northern lights using my cell and I called my brother and left my parents a message. I love speaker phone. It’s so nice to be able to talk hands free on the phone. We drove back into town and the northern lights disappeared, hidden by Bloomington’s light pollution.
A quick aside. I really like typing on a natural key board. It’s so much easier. Red brick just can’t compete with limestone. Where am I?
By Brian Killingbeck © 2005
