On the road…. again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

Caving in California

When he was a young, restless Recreation Patrolman on the El Dorado National Forest in California, the Footloose Forester had a friend his age that was as restless as he was.  He and Dave Noni were assigned to different ranger districts but came together a few times when fighting forest fires. He remembers that more than once when their shift on the fire line ended, they would race each other down the steep mountains to the road where their trucks were parked.  We may have been bone tired, but Dave always seemed to have some fuel left in his tank.  He was also the kind of scrappy guy that was later nominated by his superiors for smoke jumper training.     

It was Dave Noni that suggested that we go to explore a private cave that he knew in Calaveras County.  Dave was a native Californian and Footloose Forester had lived there less than a year, so didn’t know any caves, at all.  But he was intrigued with the idea of spelunking and trying something new.  So, we met at Dave’s house and drove to Calaveras County in Dave’s old Porsche.  As firefighters, we both had the cave lights, the back-up rescue gear, and a healthy idea about the inconveniences of being isolated underground.

Dave led the way along a trail that was almost a mile from where he parked. When we approached the narrow mouth of the cave, he explained that the more distant parts of the main tunnel was very narrow but nearly level most of the way and not too deep under the surface. The main restrictions were the width of the limestone tunnel, itself, and the height of its roof.  He may have also mentioned that chubby guys probably would not get too far, as the tunnel got progressively narrower. He was right.  Footloose Forester was a slight 140 pounds in heavy clothes; and Dave was even slimmer.

We proceeded on hands and knees for the first half of the crawl, then on our bellies as the height of the roof diminished. It was not possible to stand up or turn around in the latter stretch, so to move forward we had to wiggle from side to side. The whole leg was only about ⅜ of a mile long, but it took about 1 ½ hours to get to the spot where even thin guys could barely advance. There were only a few places where we could maneuver a little bit; but unfortunately all of them were at back nearer to the cave entrance.

We kept crawling forward.  Dave was in the lead.  He announced the presence of a sinkhole and roughly excavated vertical hole in the middle of the tunnel that dropped down another 7-8 feet to a streambed and an adjacent room below. There was just enough excavated tunnel left in front of us to allow Dave to advance before the tunnel petered out, and just enough for Footloose Forester to inspect the sinkhole for himself. When Footloose Forester crawled forward to inspect the sinkhole, he decided that he wanted to explore it further by dropping down to the slanting floor below and then checking out the room that he could see off to the right. Herein comes the haunting aspect of this memoir. In order to inspect the sinkhole and its environs, we would have to go down feet first. Going into the hole headlong was unsafe, and probably foolhardy. Dave agreed to give it a try because although he had been to the cave before and knew about the sinkhole, he had never before gone down to the lower level.  To accomplish our plan, it meant that we first had to back out to the mouth of the cave. At our position, the tunnel was too narrow for us to turn around, or to stand up.

After another 1½ hour backward crawl to the mouth of the cave; and to get a drink and a snack, we proceeded to the area of the sinkhole.  This time, we were aware that a slow, backward crawl was the only way we could have approached the sinkhole and then attempt to drop down to the lower level--feet first. As host and guide, Dave again went first. When he got to the sinkhole after more than an hour crawling backwards, he slowly dropped down to the lower level and moved left toward the underground stream.  Then, as he descended into the sinkhole, Footloose Forester had to move right in the direction of the side room: because there was not enough space on the left side to accommodate both of us at the same time.

The climax of this vivid recollection from more than 50 years ago was the knowledge that the Footloose Forester was the first modern human to enter the room on the right.  How did he know that as the truth? Because at the lens shaped opening at the entrance to the room, there was a short line of unbroken stalactites hanging over his head; because there were several unbroken stalagmites right beneath them in the drip line; and because there were a few thin and unbroken soda straws along that drip line that blocked the entrance from top to bottom, like so many prison bars.