Tumbling Rock and Cloudland Canyon: Caving and Hiking

The first time I went caving, I hated it. Ironically, I love it now and it has become one of my most frequent trip defaults. Tumbling Rock was just a poor first caving experience for me, not because anything went wrong but mostly due to my own peculiarities. Caves are extremely disorienting, particularly if you don't know what to expect. Though I've learned to distinguish formations and paths, the first time I went caving I thought everything looked the same and I was certain that I was going to get lost. The biggest problem with this trip was size. Caving is best in groups of three or four and this was a trip of at least 15. It's hard to keep a large group together and realizing that you don't know what path the leader has taken is terrifying. Even though I decided at the time that I would probably never go caving again (ha!), I still thought the experience was well worth it. 

Like the foam armory I had brought to Mount Yonah, I came supplied with dollar section goods: glow sticks. My plan? A "cave rave" in which everyone turns off their headlamps and we wave glow sticks around in the darkness. I still keep at least one pack of glow sticks in my caving backpack, always prepared for another spontaneous cave rave. In retrospect, Tumbling Rock is probably an ok cave. When I went though, I thought parts of it were sketchy at best, climbing, crawling, and sliding around thick deposits of mud and rock. I also did not take well to the darkness, constantly yearning for sunlight and more visibility than my dim headlamp could provide. When we emerged, I was coated in mud and grateful for rays of sunshine. Cave mud is one of the most appealing aspects of caving to me. I always loved rolling around in mud as a little girl, much to my mother's chagrin, and I still love to play in it now. I was also amused by the cave's owner's cat, who ran around our campsite and even climbed into my jacket pocket at one point. 

One of the most entertaining parts of this trip was the Rock Animal Zoo, located in someone's yard nearby. We climbed around on these giant boulders painted to the likeness of several different animals, including a chicken, cows, and a giraffe. Afterwards, we hiked up to Neversink, a large pit that I have since returned to and rappelled down into. At that point, however, I barely ventured close to the edge. I was so afraid that I would fall in that I clung to trees and tried to peek from a distance. Now, whenever I go to Neversink, I flit around the edge almost to a point of danger. It was beautiful, with a steady flow of water cascading into the darkness. 

The next day, my car decided against going caving again. This was perfectly fine with me but one of the girls in our car ended up switching out with someone else who didn't want to cave again. Instead, we went hiking around Cloudland Canyon. The timing was PERFECT. The leaves were beginning to change and so we had the most incredible views of thick patches of green, yellow, orange, and red. 

Events occurred: October 28-30, 2011