SOL 17/31

"I'm really not so sure about this. It seems - really scary. Like, really, really scary. Not to mention dangerous!" I protested.

"Aaron, come on! I'll do it if you do it. It'll be fun. You will be so bumped if you didn't end up doing it."He said.

"Oh - O.K., I guess. But I will turn around if I decide I don't want to!" I announced.

We descended into it, a jagged, gaping black hole that lies at the bottom of a crack, hundreds of feet above a steep hill on a mountain. We drove all the way up here, and climbed up this huge hill - I convinced myself it shouldn't be for nothing. Once we lowered ourselves down the crack, and into the gaping hole, the light getting dimmer and dimmer, we finally reached the cave floor. We turned on the lights that were duck taped to our helmets.

There was only two guides responsible for the dozen teenagers that climbed into the cave. It was a public cave so to speak, so there was no official guides. Graffiti lined the walls of the first room - but most didn't dare to go farther. Except us. The first room was the largest, maybe ten feet tall at it's tallest and eight feet wide at it's widest. We crossed the room, and pulled ourselves into the jagged tunnel that led deeper into the mountain.

We crept in, lowering to a crouch. The tunnel turned, and narrowed. The group slowed. After a few minutes we reached the passage way. A small, awkwardly shaped room that roughly sloped downwards, but was full of large rocks. We slowly climbed down; going over, under, and between rocks. Then, we reached the "slide."

The slide was simple, a crack in the mountain that had two vertical walls around two feet away from each other, that led twenty feet down. We were supposed to squeeze between the walls, and slide down, using our strength to push against the wall to avoid falling straight down. After that, we wee supposed to crawl through a tiny hole, climb up a different route, and leave the way we came. When my turn came around I was scared out of my mind. But I squeezed into the crack anyway, and pushed.

I started sliding down, my hands and shoulders and knees scraping the wall, holding me up. All I could see was my arms and the wall in front of me, but I could sense that I was far from the bottom. My hands and knees were scraped until they hurt, and I almost fell a few times. My arm was stuck for a few seconds at one point. But I reached the bottom, and we all climbed out as fast as we could. Getting out of the dark, claustrophobic cave was one of the most stress relieving experiences of my life.