| After parking on the top of the hill, we took a wild guess on where to head down. According to the map, there was a ditch following the contour of a mountain until reaching a huge ravine created by hydraulic mining. In the side of the ravine were to be numerous tunnels. We found one. The first discovery of it made us jump with joy, but as we looked closer, the tunnel had caved in to almost it's ceiling. To get in, we had to dig a hole in the mud into the entrance of the adit. The picture to the right is my brother crawling into the cave after digging a small passage in the dirt. |  |
| Squeezing ourselves through our hand dug passage, we made it in. The air was cold and humid. The darkness was overwhelming. As we turned on the flashlight, we found that the whole cave was filled with water up to our knees. I had rubber boots on, but the water was too deep for my boots. By the time I was on my way back towards the entrance, my brother was taking his shoes and socks off and rolling up his pants. Looking up at the ceiling we noticed some of the insects that made the cave their house.
They looked like giant crickets with no jumping legs and long legs. (really scary). We also saw salamanders climbing on the dark tunnel walls. |  |
| Trying not to make the slightest of any noise (the sound could cause the ceiling to cave in), we whispered to eachother. After talking, a small "kerplunk" in the water tells us that we need to be very careful. Rocks were falling from the ceiling, and; as the picture shows, the timbers had long since fallen to the floor of the cave. The tunnel ended a hundred feet down, and we head back out. |  |
