January 10, 2009

We pulled out of the Food Lion parking lot in Madison Heights about 8 AM and headed up Rt 130 on this beautiful winter morning. There were 5 of us........Ken Mays, Jon Strong, Ash Coleman and Ash's friend Keith Cable and me. We arrived at the cave entrance about 9:30ish to find an empty parking lot. At least for now, we had the cave all to ourselves !!!   The entrance of the cave was shrouded with icicles and the footing was a bit slippery, but we managed to get in safely without any mishaps.
It had been several years since I was in Crossroads, and I really didn't remember anything about how to navigate my way through the cave, but we had a map and some of the others had recently been there, so we weren't too worried about getting lost. We made out way down through the main route, stopping along the way here and there to take pictures and explore some upper leads. There seemed to be more bats that I remember on previous trips to this cave, and we were careful not to bother them.
This was a typical Crossroads trip. We spent about 5 hours underground, exploring lead after lead on multiple levels, leaving much more caving to be done on future trips. What was unusual is that we did not encounter any more cavers all day. I don't know why we don't do this cave more often. It is easy access, it's open and now there is good parking. I'm definitely putting it on my default list of caves to do on last minute trips. It is really a fun sporting cave with a lot of cave to see.
We stopped at Don Tequila's in Lexington on our way home for the traditional post cave meal, and headed back to places more familiar. Another great trip. As Harry and Larry would say, "we cheated death one more time".
Mike Frazier
James River Grotto