shaych_03 | Trip Meanderings

So anyway, last week we (mom & me) decided to head into Amador County and check out one of the caves up there. We chose Black Chasm, figuring that since it was opened to the public that it couldn't be too bad.

See, I've been in one cave before... really quite a fun time... when I was a teenager, visiting my dad (

wynterbelle219 should remember this trip - she got to ride the horse of a kindly stranger. then again, she WAS three... ;), step mother and sister we went to TN... toodled around the Smokey Mountains and such... and there was a cave there... I seem to recall that it was called Mystery Caverns, but another friend says it's Ruby Falls... either way, you took an elevator down into a spacious environment where you could wander at least three abreast and take pictures without fear for your life...

So up to Black Chasm we (mom and I) went.

The drive is gorgeous. It's a nice (35ish F) day... puffy white clouds are streaking the gem-blue skies... everything is green... the air is brisk. The twisty turnies don't make me sick for once. I'm feeling good.

Get inside the gift shop... it's very UNbusy... seems we chose well to come up in the middle of the week, in the middle of February...

buy tickets... way cheaper than even an afternoon movie (24 bucks for two ppl...)

Noon rolls around and it's time to head down (stop to point out the fake stalagmite sitting on the verandah... it's a movie prop from The Matrix: Revolutions. seems Black Chasm was the "model" for Zion)

and then down some stairs we go. Keep track, this is a theme.

At the iron gate, I feel a little bouncy glee. I can't wait to see this cave...

Then we go inside, and the first thing I notice is that it's wet. The steps are covered in a thin layer of water... the handrails are slick with it too. "This could be troublesome" I think.

I should have turned 'round right there.

Because thus began the torture.

The wet stairs (and when I say stairs, I mean steps made out of this odd amalgam material that's created with wood shavings and old plastic bags... imagine what that is like, WET)lead to more wet stairs... now... I am not a jock. By this I mean, i'm overweight and generally out of shape in the kind of way that makes Jenny Craig cackle with anticipatory glee... but now I'm committed to this damned thing... and I want to see the cave.

But the stairs. Wait. Let me just call them by what they are. The Ladder of Doom. Yes, my friends. The "stairway" is really just a glorified ladder since it's near vericle decent into the cave is barely broader than the width of a standard ladder. The slickness goes away about halfway down (guess we got past the groundwater flow) but the grade only gets steeper. By the time I hit the "deck" as it were (the main cavern) every muscle in my legs felt as though they'd been stripped, yanked until snapping and then shoved back in.

But it was worth every painful step. Unless something changes drastically, I'll never see it again... so I will not trade these memories for anything.

This cave system was amazing. We could barely see the underground lake far far below us, but there was so much else to see that it didn't matter. The flowstone, the halectites... it was all so wonderful and beautiful.

And then there was the Goddess. A formation of flowstone that to me, looked exactly like the profile of a Venus of Willendorf.

Here are some pictures.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/wax.jpg - looks just like the wax that puddles around a tall candle

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/traceyscupcake.jpg - TBJ fans - Look, it's Tracey's Cupcake!!

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/goddessstone.jpg - the Goddess feature... you might need to squint LOL I was still pretty tired...

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/flowstone.jpg - this is the flowstone "apron" at the feet of the goddess

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/fishrock.jpg - an unusual rock outside of the cavern...

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/curtainflowstone.jpg - a "curtain" or "chandelier" of flowstone

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/column.jpg - when a stalactite and a stalagmite meet, they call 'em columns ;)

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/shaych03/pretty%20pictures/alienhalectites.jpg - Black Chasm has one of the largest collections of "halectites" in the world... these things looked so creepy, so alien... yet so beautiful...

Anyway, if you are in the area of Amador County, CA, or you come to visit and you're up for a challening stair climb... go see Black Chasm, cuz it's amazing :)

Trip Meanderings

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