Last week, I went out to Park Caverns to continue digging for the third room. This time, my friend Kala accompanied me out to help out! Just a recap from last time, I started digging directly down instead of under the pathway and ended up realizing that the floor was really compacted sediment instead of solid rock. I was able to dig further down and felt more of a breeze this way. However, I realized that there are significantly bigger rock chunks in my way and I needed a solution to this.
To do this, I decided to add two new pieces to my toolkit: an electric lantern and a crowbar. I bought both at Home Depot. Bob, Denise’s husband, had joked last time how maybe having a crowbar would get these rocks out of the way, but I realized that he was actually right. My main problem was that the pick on my hammer was too thick to fit into small crevices to get them loose. The blade of a crowbar is slightly thinner and longer, so it can easily fit into these spaces. Not only that, but the crowbar allows me more leverage that the hammer cannot compete with. The handle is long enough to where I can maneuver my foot to press down and therefore push things out of the way with a greater force. The electric lantern allows more light in certain areas so that I can better see smaller crevices or determine what rocks are loose compared to me just using a headlamp. I also decided to name all of my different tools.
So I lowered myself into The Hole and realized that is way deeper than when I first started. Before, I could feel my foot on the ground pretty easily. Now, I just have to trust that it is there whenever I drop now. Once down there, I start clearing out sediment from last week to get a better view of where to dig. I bring my face close to the ground and feel a strong breeze coming out of a crevice. I hit lightly it with the rock hammer to test if it is loose or still well connected and the whole rock shakes. It is loose enough for me to move. I position the crowbar into the hole, put my weight into, and the rock came loose!. With that, a breath of cool air came out and a small portion of The Hole became about a foot deeper!
For the rest of the trip, my focus on making the whole floor the same depth. I was able to make a good portion of it deeper, but I’m meeting resistance from bigger pieces of breakdown around me. The hole itself is starting to starting to look more like a vertical shaft rather than horizontal. Some of the rocks when I first drop into the hole look like they are easier to move and therefore make it wider, so next time I will focus on that. If it does indeed end up being a vertical shaft, I will need to devise a way to where I can fit down there and still be able to remove sediment.
As promised in my last post, I got measurements of the cave! I have now updated the map to reflect these changes. I discovered that the cave goes down about 31 feet below the surface. However, this is only met inside The Hole. The Nameless room is about 26 feet below and The Hole is about five feet deep.
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