Nutty Putty Caves

This is something that has been on my mind for a long time, and it kinda goes with other things out there as well right now, with parents and their kids. I hope I don't really offend anyone with this post, but to be honest if I do, oh well I could really care less.

I was first introduced to the caves back like 14 years ago when I was first in the scouts. My buddy Cam and I were getting ready to go on one of many new awesome camp outs and this was one of the first as deacons. We all got to the area set up camp and got settled in. We all had tin foil dinners for dinner and this was the start of my moms amazing tin foil dinners that she made for me and that I would eat for almost every camp out I ever went on. So good! We were wondering if the first night was just gonna be a chill night, but around 11pm we grabbed our gear and started climbing the hill. Now I had heard of the cave before but never really ever been there. So I was pretty excited. I had heard that it was super tiny and I wasn't sure if I was afraid of tight spaces so this would be a good way to find out haha. When they said we were here I was trying to see an entrance to a cave in the hillside, but didn't see anything till they motioned me to this huge hole in the ground with like a ten foot climb down to the bottom, then there was a plank of wood for some reason. We climbed down and then I got to look at the real entrance to the cave. It was about a 2ft high by maybe 3ft wide hole in the ground that you had to crawl through to get into the cave. This part was pretty easy for me due to the fact that I was super tiny and skinny. Not like much has changed. So I was the first one in and Cam followed suit. They had us designate the buddy system so we wouldn't get lost while we were there. Once you got inside the cave you could stand up and had to walk over to an area that had about a 50ft descend into the belly of this thing. There was a rope ladder and I thought that was pretty awesome. We got the group down there and had a really good time, and pretty much lost track of time. We came out of the cave at around 6 in the morning, went to bed for a bit and then got dressed and went right back in. One of my favorite parts about the cave was the fact that it was about 80 degrees inside the thing. You were always warm once inside no matter how cold it was outside. We went many times during the winter just cause you could and still be perfectly warm. You would get super dirty cause most of the time you are crawling around everywhere, and with the heat and moisture, you went in clean and came out a dirt clod. Basically it was an amazing amount of fun that you would totally forget what was going on outside of the cave or what time it was. It was great, I've spent hours inside this thing just climbing around and experiencing new stuff. One of my favorite parts of the cave is a place called the birth canal. The main reason for the name is the fact that the entrance of the thing is almost too small for me. You have to start out by putting your arms either in front of you, o to the sides of your body and leave them there because you won't be able to move them at all once you get started. It's not a very long crawl, but it opens up to a good sized room once you get in there. Needless to say this place was amazing.

I guess the main reason for this post is to talk about the stupid people that went down there, with the end result of them blowing up the entrance to the cave, thus making me sad and kinda mad and wanting the cave back. You see people get stuck in this thing all the time, because they don't know what they are doing, o they don't have all o the right equipment that they would need for it. We were sat down as 12 year old's and told what to bring, a knife, 2 flashlights, and an extra pear of batteries in case your lights go out. So we would always go prepared because we know what could happen down there if one of these things went wrong. I remember a time a kid was with his group down there, didn't listen and strayed off from his group. He got turned around in a section of the cave and then his light went out. He was lost down there for almost 2 days. Luckily for him another group decided to go the same way he went and found him, the kid said he could hear voices around him but didn't know where they were coming from. Turns out he was barely 8ft away from the entrance to the room, but couldn't see it because it was so dark. Our leaders took us to the room and had us turn out our lights so we could see what it was like. I remember not being able to see my hand, even when I touched it to my nose. It was super dark down there even with lights at times and I promised myself I would never go unprepared down there. We had a couple kids in our group once that thought they were too cool to stay with our group and decided to not listen to our leaders and stray off. One of them got stuck and was stuck were he was for about 9 hours. It wasn't until a scout troop with a rope came through that we were able to get him out. It was a pretty scary time though. Now on to the reason the cave was closed. There are a couple. Some friends and I went down the night before they put a gate over it, we didn't know they were doing it though. The gate made it so you had to have a key and permission from the city to go down in the cave. After they did that there wasn't any problems for the first few months. Then the person that got it closed for good went down. With what I'm saying I mean no disrespect to the family of the man o the man himself, but all in all he was a moron. The number one rule of caving.......No matter how good of a cave you may think you are you should never go by yourself, always have a buddy. Um duh common sense. Especially in a cave like this one that has 26 miles of cave awesomeness. This is the number one rule and he broke it and payed for it with his life. Super sad. Problem number two for Mr. I'm hugely experienced caver man. There is a portion of the cave that you just don't go in, the 50 billion people that know about this cave know this. Why? because people get stuck in it all the time. Why? because at the top of this ceiling hole in the wall it curves in a way that leaves the bottom half of you dangling in a way that makes it quite hard to get back out o any farther in. Let me set the scene for you. He goes by himself, goes through the birth canal and decides to try this no go hole. Gets stuck, obviously thinks that if you go farther you can get out. WRONG! He slipped and basically wedged himself to a point where there was no where to go. They didn't realize he was gone for a long time and they tried all they could to get him out but to no avail. He passed away in the cave a few days later. Very Very Sad.

In a way though I don't really feel sorry for him. I feel sorry that he did something so stupid that he thought he could beat. I feel sorry that his family has to be without their son because he made a stupid choice. I'm also kinda mad at the family as well, because of their actions in demanding that the cave be blown up to prevent and further incident, they took away something from millions of people that was one of the coolest things to be able to do in this state, and really for no reason at all. No one before their son has ever died in the caves. Sure people have gotten stuck, but they were with other people and could get out. Even the owner of the cave wanted to just seal that area off and it would of been totally fine. No the parents wanted it sealed for ever. So they dumped concrete down the entrance then blew it up. Which kinda makes me wonder what kinda people we are turning into these days. Anything dangerous comes along and we just get rid of it, instead of embracing it for the awesome power and thing it has. Instead of learning about it and taking the necessary steps to prevent accident. Back when I was a kid we did so many things that parents now a days would look at as super dangerous and why would our parents ever let us do them. I still do a lot of those things. It's hilarious to look at parents now a days and tell them what I've done o wanna do in my life. My ex's mother had a hard time believing and ended up not liking me because of the fact that I wanna work at Sea World as a trainer with the killer whales, because a trainer was killed last year. SO WHAT? It's one of the most amazing jobs in the world. Yes my parents let me do a lot of really amazing things that hell yes could of gotten me killed, o seriously hurt. But I learned about these things and took every precaution to make sure I didn't hurt myself o those around me. That seems to be the problem now a days with some people. They don't wanna take the time to learn and do the necessary things to make sure the trip is safe. Lots of people are getting hurt o passing away because they just don't care anymore. Makes me sad.