California Cavern Middle Earth Expedition

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This is a story in pictures of one group's experience on the Middle Earth Expedition at California Cavern. The photos were taken with a disposable camera. The inhospitable environment is very detrimental to better camera equipment - so these pictures are not of the highest quality, but they do show some of the physical challenges of the five hour expedition. What they don't show is the incredible beauty. California Cavern's most spectacular formations can only be seen on this trip, in these wet and muddy conditions. Very often overhead and on the walls of the chambers we climbed, crawled and squelched through were magical, sparkling crystals, twisting helictites, delicate soda straws, draperies and many stalactites and flowstones.
We start out very clean, wearing protective coveralls, anticipating their expedition!	The adventure begins! Lisa descends into the cave from the spelunking entrance.	Duane emerges from the "Womb Room," which we had dived into head- first. It was the author's favorite part of the trip!	Here is one of the tightest crawls through the drier Mammoth part of the cave. It's easier than it looks!
Tommie leads the way, closely followed by Duane. Our immersion in the water is inevitable but we enjoy challenging ourselves to keep out as long as possible!	Lisa navigates her way through the rocks. She's a caving novice, but is loving every minute! Overhead are beautiful crystalline formations that cannot be seen in this picture.	Lisa watches Tommie pull herself along on the rope and wonders if she can keep her backside out of the water as successfully. It turns out she can't!!	Duane, with his upper body strength keeps himself well out of the water on this part of the trip. Of course, there are places we all get soaked, but that's just part of the fun!
After slurping through thick, gooey mud for half an hour, the group takes a little rest. We're getting tired, but having a great time!	Tommie ascends the ladders at the end of the expedition, taking her through some beautiful parts of the cave with lots of flowstone formation.	Lisa takes a last look around at this subterranean wonderland. The expedition really did take us to the most wonderfully decorated parts of the cave!	Duane takes a last look back. The physical challenge and fun combined with the beauty of the cave made for a very memorable trip.
We all came away from this experience a little tired, very elated and in awe of the natural beauty we felt privileged to have viewed. Surprisingly, being wet and muddy for a couple of hours was not uncomfortable - there was too much to see and do! Also, having been through this challenging adventure I felt it brought the group closer together. We looked out for and assisted each other as needed and developed a bantering camaraderie, which was half the fun. For myself, a caving novice it was enough to make me determined to do much more caving. This could get to be a serious hobby!