January 16, 2011

Camping at Eagle Cave in Blue River, Wisconsin --- Shortarmguy Diary Entry for 1/16/11


Camping at Eagle Cave in Blue River, Wisconsin 
Shortarmguy Diary Entry for 1/16/11

On Monday night, Luke and Avery had their third trip to Buck Hill as part of their school's ski club.  The best part about this particular night was that I was able to score a chaperone pass which allowed me to join them skiing without having to pay anything!  After skiing down a couple runs, I finally found the boys.  They pretty much abandoned me immediately after I took this picture, though.  I was fine with it.  I'm much more about the free skiing than I am about the chaperoning.


I've driven by Buck Hill for about 25 years now, but this was the first time I'd actually skiied down it's slopes.  They don't have a whole bunch of runs, but the ones I went down were pretty fun.  Although the people skiing usually look like they're going much faster when I'm driving by on the interstate going 75 miles per hour. 


Beyond this door lies the entrance to Eagle Cave in Blue River, Wisconsin.  This is where the Shortarmguy Family spent the past two nights Camping in a Cave.

Luke and Avery's Boy Scout troop joined several other groups to explore Wisconsin's largest onyx cave.  The cave is privately owned and the owner's are cool enough to let the kids have complete free reign of the place.  So many caves you go to any more don't even allow visitors to touch the walls, but at Eagle Cave visitors are encouraged to go anywhere they can fit! 


I heard that there were about 300 people staying in the cave while we were there.  I believe that since I heard pretty much everyone of them snoring while we trying to sleep wedged in right on top of our closest 50 friends we have.  Luckily, it was so easy to sleep because the temperature was just about 50 degrees, the lights were kept on at all times, and there's water dripping on your face randomly throughout the night.   Cave Camping?  More like Cave Insomnia Attack!


Luckily, we had a lot of rugged men who don't need silly things like sleep to lead us.  We followed these guys into some pretty scary holes!
Our Boy Scout Troop Committee Chairman, Troy Brown, originally recruited us into Cub Scouts many years ago and are we sure glad he did.  We've done a lot of really unique and fun activities together over the years!

Our Old Buddy, Karl Zitzewitz, was so excited to go exploring the cave.  He emailed me the night before we went to make sure I was still excited and would not try to back out at the last minute using some lame excuse.  I guess he's getting to know me a little too well!

The two of us made it down into this tunnel.  I was already in there when this picture was taken.  But since the exit was even smaller than the entrance, we decided to come back out the way through which we came.  We made a serious attempt to Spelunk our way through it, though, and that's what counts!

I know a lot of people think that going cave exploring sounds like a really exotic thing to do, but some times there can be a downside to crawling around in tunnels all day.



This part of the cave was called The Hornet's Nest and was basically a big hole with shelves in it.  The literature bragged that there once was a time that 53 kids were able to fit in this tight space, but I ain't buying it.  Any more than 52 kids just seems impossible.

Some serious bonding happens between men when wedged into tiny little crevices deep under the earth together.  Especially when they have fancy little lights on their heads to illuminate each other's smiling faces!!

Avery was supposed to have a basketball game on Saturdary, but it would have been tough to do since both Coach John and Coach Tom were on the Cave Camping trip with us along with half the basketball team.  Luckily, they were able to trade bye weeks with another team so we didn't have to forfeit the game.


I kept telling Avery that he had to work on his basketball skills while we were there, but he just kept whining about there not being enough room to dribble the ball.  Kids these days!



Is that an Icicle you're growing or are you just happy to see me?



Is that a stalagmite you've discovered or are you just excited to see me?



Are those some dinosaur eggs you've discovered or are you just excited to see me? 

I know that makes zero sense, but it's late, I'm tired, and I need to finish this update so I can go and get some sleep.

Have a great week everyone!!

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this. My Troop from Chicago is planning to go to Eagle Cave in March 2012.

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  2. Thanks for the camping pics - was wondering what the setup was. Headed there in about 3 hours - cubscout troop. Looks like the cotts are the way to go.

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