Breathing - 6/1/2024
Harriet Flynn Reporting
Harriet, Chris, Eric, Margo, and Karl headed to Breathing Cave with the plan to explore some of the new section but then head back to the historic section and do some vertical work. But the new section was so exciting we never went to the vertical section!
We were in the cave for 6 hours during which time we made it all the way to the first waterfall in the back. If you have not seen the entire map of Breathing Cave it is a pretty large cave with a map that takes up 7 sheets of paper if you have the general map and even more if you have the detailed map.
While in the cave we saw lots of flowstone, large columns, and many many passages to choose from. We went down Cathedral Passage which had very very tall ceilings and then headed back down Serpentine Way to get to the first water fall. We took a break and then turned around to head back to the exit of the cave. We decided to take Parallel Passage on the way back since on the map it looked as wide as the Cathedral Passage…it was not. After squeezing our way though a few spots we got to the section where we should have been able to connect back over to Cathedral Passage. We were in the correct spot but it did take us a while to figure out how to find the connection. After a few failed attempts finding the passage Erik climbed his way behind a rock and up a small shoot. After a few minutes we could hear him running back above us yelling “I found it”. We were all very excited that we didn’t have to turn around and go back down Parallel Passage. Erik set up a hand line for the rest of us so we could get up to the next section. After that we had a good amount of cave, climbing, and squeezing ahead of us to get back to the exit.
Over all we had a great time and enjoyed our time in Breathing, not so much the very hot hike too and from the cave.
