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Bone Norman Cave Trip

Saturday, November 17, 2007

by

Mike Frazier

This trip began as most do, meeting at the local park and ride and proceeding to our destination. Attendees were Chuck Waller, Paul Stern, Robbie Donovan and I. Harry and Larry Sowers and their friend Paco from Pennsylvania led us. We met up with Mark Morton in Lewisburg, and after a brief stop at Shoney’s, we headed for the cave.

 We were greeted at the site by a very large, calf-sized dog that was determined to make Chuck his best friend. Chuck proclaimed not to be a “dog person” but our new friend had other ideas. We got into the Norman entrance of the cave about 11 or so, and picked our way down a long, downhill breakdown slope. We soon encountered a climb down to a beautiful waterfall, where Paco took the first of many outstanding pictures.

This cave is very large, with huge, booming passages. We were also told that it would be wet in places, and was it ever!!! There were many places throughout the cave where you had to get in the water, and it was knee to waist deep. For a couple of us who managed to fall in, it was chest deep or worse. Thankfully, you didn’t have to stay in it long for long stretches of time. There were also many breakdown hills that had to be negotiated, and the passage just kept going, getting larger and larger. At one point, we were at the top of a large hill, and up ahead was a breathtaking view of what looked like a valley with the river running through it. What a sight!!!

Not long after this, we climbed up to an upper chamber called the “great white way”. This is basically a very long, winding hallway lined with huge amounts of calcite and helictite formations. The floor in this passage was as level as a concrete sidewalk, with only a rock here and there protruding the surface. This passage seemed to go on forever, and we finally stopped for a much needed lunch break. It was estimated by Harry and Larry that at this point that we had only negotiated about 1/3 of the Norman side of the cave, but we decided to turn back and head for the entrance. About 2 hours later, we achieved our goal, and the long uphill climb to the entrance after several hours of physical caving told me that I had about all of the caving that I needed for one day.

After dressing out, we drove back into Lewisburg for a much-needed Mexican dinner and a caver beverage or two, and then proceeded home. What a great caving day!!! I can’t wait to get back into this cave, and for those of you who missed it, do not miss the next trip to Norman.

Mike Frazier