Clarksville Cave

The stream that runs through the cave

Time to walk like a hunchback

A nice spot for a break

It didn't take long to be in it above the knees

The Lake Room

Some more of the Lake Room

Like a subway tunnel, with out the trash

Rock formations, kind of like a jaw

The waterfall

A close up of the waterfall

Working our way down the slide

Looking up into the slide

The Sump

Not much room

At the exit of section 2

The Thook

This would be a return trip to a "cold, wet and dark place" with the Hudson Valley Hikers Meetup Group.  With this past weeks rain, it made for a much more interesting caving experience.

The walk is broken up in three sections.  The first section is the longest distance-wise, but does not require much crawling, just a lot of walking like a hunchback.  This first section is very wet and the crawling that is required is through water.  This part of the cave ends in what's called the Lake Room.  It's an amazingly beautiful spot.  Here, I took a dip in the water and passed through a tunnel with the water up to my chest.  Another guy, despite the water's cold temperature, thought it was a great time for a swim.

The second part is the longest section, time-wise.  There are many different spots to explore.  We first went to the Hammer Room.  Here there are crevasses that you can climb in.  We crawled as far as we could, then turned off our headlamps and enjoyed pure darkness.  No sunlight.  No Moonlight.  Not even any starlight.  Nada.

From here we made our way back to the main cave which brought us to some more water.  We followed the cave down to the stream.  This is where the walk became quite interesting.  The last time I was here the waterfall was a slight trickle.  Today it was roaring.  We walked along it (and sometimes underneath it) trying to find another route.  We then had to backtrack and work our way towards The Sump.  To get there, we had to negotiate our way down a slide.  It was as close to a natural slide as I've seen, except for the few rocky areas toward the bottom.  Once back in the water, we had to negotiate The Sump.  The water had almost reached the ceiling.  We all had to duck at least some of our head to make it by.  From here it was fairly straight forward, though there would be a deep water spot that did not exist a month ago.

The third section (The Thook) is the shortest, but the most exhausting.  Once inside here, there is barely a spot to even sit up.  Mush of this crawl is made keeping your stomach pressed against the ground.  The section that is especially tough is when you have to crawl above a crevasse.  Your left side of your body is on one side and your right side is on he other.  And not much room to raise yourself above the ground.  Tough stuff.  But still a place I long to go back to.