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Crane Mt.
me and my buddy went to the Adirondacks last weekend (labor day) and it was pretty sweet. we got to crane mt. friday night and pitched the tent at the trailhead (there's no rules against that is there?). forgot TP so we had to drive to Johnsburg and wait for the store to open and then we finally got on the trail saturday morning around 9 i think. the weather couldnt have been any better!! we dropped packs at the pond and set up camp.
here's where the fun began. we hiked down the back side of the mountain and hit the caves around noon. i've been waiting to do these caves for a couple years now and it was my first time caving and being in the Crane mt. caves. my buddy had already been in the caves a couple weeks before this trip so we werent completely inexperienced. i must say that being down there is pretty awesome. we probably followed the brook for a bout a thousand feet in the cave untill it ended in a pool that went to an underground river. unfortunately we didnt have any equipment or experience to go diving, but our caving adventure certainly didnt end there. we explored just about every inch that we could squeeze into in that cave. we did quite a few belly crawls, some that were probably about 15-20 feet, which were pretty eerie at times. at one point we were away from the brook doing a belly crawl, it was so incredibly quiet that it was just wierd. it was also crazy how dark it is if you turn off your headlamps; you cant even see your hand when its an inch from you face.
something that i took from caving is the sense of complete aloneness that you get from being in there. its an awesome experience if you've never done it and its something that i'd like to get into more. its also wild how your eyesadjust there, they kind of play tricks on you and make you feel like the whole cave is closing in on you.
anyways, we came out of the caves at about 3-3:30 and were completely covered in sand from head to toe. i should have some pics soon so you can see how dirty we were and pics of the cave. something that kinda freaked me out is that there were big rocks in front of the cave entrance that werent there when i came in june, so i wonder if they rolled down there or if the DEC or rangers put them there to deter people from entering the caves.
back to the trip: we hiked back up to camp on the pond and were both completely drained (it really takes a lot out of you) so we took a nap, got up ate dinner and in short made a fire and went to bed etc. etc.
in the morning we decided that we were gonna pack up camp and head over to Chimney mt. to do some more exploring and caving, but before we did that we hit the summit just to catch some quick views and pics and headed down and packed up and hiked back down to the car.
me and my buddy went to the Adirondacks last weekend (labor day) and it was pretty sweet. we got to crane mt. friday night and pitched the tent at the trailhead (there's no rules against that is there?). forgot TP so we had to drive to Johnsburg and wait for the store to open and then we finally got on the trail saturday morning around 9 i think. the weather couldnt have been any better!! we dropped packs at the pond and set up camp.
here's where the fun began. we hiked down the back side of the mountain and hit the caves around noon. i've been waiting to do these caves for a couple years now and it was my first time caving and being in the Crane mt. caves. my buddy had already been in the caves a couple weeks before this trip so we werent completely inexperienced. i must say that being down there is pretty awesome. we probably followed the brook for a bout a thousand feet in the cave untill it ended in a pool that went to an underground river. unfortunately we didnt have any equipment or experience to go diving, but our caving adventure certainly didnt end there. we explored just about every inch that we could squeeze into in that cave. we did quite a few belly crawls, some that were probably about 15-20 feet, which were pretty eerie at times. at one point we were away from the brook doing a belly crawl, it was so incredibly quiet that it was just wierd. it was also crazy how dark it is if you turn off your headlamps; you cant even see your hand when its an inch from you face.
something that i took from caving is the sense of complete aloneness that you get from being in there. its an awesome experience if you've never done it and its something that i'd like to get into more. its also wild how your eyesadjust there, they kind of play tricks on you and make you feel like the whole cave is closing in on you.
anyways, we came out of the caves at about 3-3:30 and were completely covered in sand from head to toe. i should have some pics soon so you can see how dirty we were and pics of the cave. something that kinda freaked me out is that there were big rocks in front of the cave entrance that werent there when i came in june, so i wonder if they rolled down there or if the DEC or rangers put them there to deter people from entering the caves.
back to the trip: we hiked back up to camp on the pond and were both completely drained (it really takes a lot out of you) so we took a nap, got up ate dinner and in short made a fire and went to bed etc. etc.
in the morning we decided that we were gonna pack up camp and head over to Chimney mt. to do some more exploring and caving, but before we did that we hit the summit just to catch some quick views and pics and headed down and packed up and hiked back down to the car.
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