This weekend found some of the newest members of the Purdue Outing Club down by Bloomington for the caving callout. Our group of 11 gathered by 8:00am Saturday morning, but do to problems on the part of the Co-rec staff, we weren't on our way until 9am. We arrived at the Hoosier Speleospot about two hours later, and we managed to mess around even longer before getting underground. The first stop was Trapdoor Cave, a short cave with a climbable pit entrance. We "did the loop" in the cave, stopping by the domes and the clay city, while a few people tried a squeeze/crawl at the end of the cave. Out of the entire weekend, only one person could go through the tightest squeeze, and that would be Christina on the Saturday trip, way to go! We exited the cave triumphant with no broken bones. Next we were off to the big trip for the day, Queen Blair. One can guess what's in store when they see what can practically be called a small river flowing out of the entrance area. There were some creative words exchanged as people started crawling through 54 degree low water crawls referred to as "bathtubs." The "after" photos speak for themselves. After the crawl the group saw big stream passage and a good number of formations including stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and soda straws. We went all the way to the big room at the end of the cave, aptly named Thunder Hall. After exiting the cave about 3 hours later, we jumped in the creek to clean off, changed, and then headed to Taco Bell for some food of questionable quality before splitting up and heading back to Purdue at 9:30pm, a little later than expected, but everyone had a great time...



Sunday's trip only had six total due to the lack of a third driver. I realized leading two callout trips in one weekend isn't the best idea. We arrived about 10am and headed to trapdoor first and saw the whole thing. Recalling what I had went through the day before, I tried to talk some people into going somewhere other than Queen Blair, but shortly after that attempt, it was back into the barrel and through the mud-bath that is Queen Blair. The cold muddy water felt good and so with high spirits we all went back to Thunder Hall, almost as far as Saturday's trip. This terminal room contains dangerous breakdown and a difficult climb, so some of us stayed at the bottom and waited for the others to look around before heading out. Through the mud-bath again and we're out bathing in the stream. This is about the time I realized my keys were no longer in the pocket of my coveralls.... Abby was prepared and pulled out her AAA card. My AAA card was locked in the car, along with a spare set of keys. After a call and an hour wait, help arrived, and a nice man broke into my car for me. Hey at least I brought the spare set of keys! The ones lost in Queen Blair will most likely never be seen again, buried under a foot of mud...