We had a good time at Hardin's Cave even though attendance was low. Several people that had told us they would or might be there must have got scared off by the slight rain and colder than average temperatures over the weekend.
No rain as we geared up to enter the cave around 6 pm. Zigh had some problems with his knee pads that he eventually shredded about halfway into the cave. The water was as high as I have ever seen in this cave. The stream normally flows through most of the main passage of the cave, but it is usually possible to avoid stepping into water. This time there were several places that you had to step into water that went over the ankles, mostly in the front and back of the cave. The rear of the cave was also muddier than normal.
We spotted several salamanders, and more bats than we normally see in this cave. Not many of the bats were active. The colder weather must have slowed them down, too.
One of our goals this trip was to check out the Crow's Nest Passage. We looked for it last month and ended up in another tight passage that didn't go anywhere. This time we ended up flying right past it on the way in, and were pretty tired by the time we got back to it on the return trip. We had stopped to do several other crawls along the way. Andrew ventured on into the passage and promptly declared that it was worth checking out. I reluctantly cut my break short and followed him into the passage. Sticky Feet and Zigh started in after me, but didn't go in very far.
It did indeed turn out to be an interesting passage. It goes back a long way, with several places where it opens up below with holes into the small stream that flows below. The crawl opens up into walking passage that eventually reaches a nice waterfall. It is apparent that this part of the cave is not visited often. The rocks are still sharp, and clean. Just before the waterfall, we noticed that we were at the bottom of a 30+ foot tight canyon, and saw the chimney up into the highest point in the cave. There was no way for us to reach that part of the cave, but we really enjoyed this passage anyway. It is nice to see that even a heavily visited cave like this one can have some nice, undisturbed areas left in it. There were some interesting fossils in here as well.
We quickly made our way out of the cave around 10 pm. It had gotten quite a bit colder. The temperature gauge on my truck said it was 40, but the drizzle might have held a few little snow flakes. (The kids thought it looked like snow anyway) The wind made it hard to get changed, but need to get out of our muddy clothes. We warmed up quickly in the truck on the way back.
In attendance were:
Dave Wascher
Andrew Wascher
Sticky Feet
Zigh
Irena