Members: ToXiC & Squeek
Pictures by: ToXiC

We've been aware of Santas Cave for over a year now and have actually explored it many a time. I never got around to getting photos of it until now. Santas holds alot of common ground with its Sister Cave Satans.

Sandstone Carvings, Names Carved into the soft St. Peter Sandstone, Dates, Messages, Artifacts from the past and the occasional beer can. Nothing special in the way of caves, but still a good time as always.

So this time I decided it was time to drag my camera down to get some long awaited photos, but it was an odd night from the start.

(Left: Artifacts dug up over the years)
(Right: Carving in progress)

First off none of our preferred entrances were available due to the lack of a crude manhole opener we generally use, lost to us in the snow. So we had to go to the other side of the Island and use the last resort entrance, which pretty much guaranteed TAS (Tunnel Ankle Syndrome) for the rest of the night.

So as we were about to enter, we noticed foot prints leading into the entrance, 1 person. We thought well who explores alone? We decided what the hell, entered in cautiously and couldnt find anyone in the immediate area. As we were walking along the flooded section of the watermain, we noticed our solo-explorer wasnt alone, he had brought a dog. While still not in sight we were more cautious now.

Our curiosity got the better of us, as it normally does. We decided that we would track the solo-explorer with the dog and see where he was. After about 20 minutes we ended up at Satans Cave and noticed that the dog tracks were in there as well as heading into Santas. We crawled to Santas quietly not wanting to find a dog in my face in a confined space. We jumped into Santas to find noone there. I decided the tracking could wait a bit while I snapped a few photos.

(Left & Right: Interior Shots)

We headed back after a couple smokes and searched for the tracks to see if they had come back our way, nope they were heading right to our exit. Me and Squeek thought to ourselves about how some dude would get a dog up a tall manhole. We kept moving forward until we finally got to our exit, they tracks were there and they went down towards a drain entrance, the tracks still hadnt turned back at any point.

We decided to stop tracking, we were pretty tired from all the spine bending, we attempted to lift the manhole, it didnt budge. I yelled in my head about never again will I use the last resort entrance during the winter. We decided to head to our main entrance and see if we could budge it or not and by the time we got back there I was sweating and panting like I hadnt in along time.

Squeek went up and tried to budge it, nope. I told him I'd pop it open, while I finished my smoke I prepped myself for a manhole lid push. I have about a 50% success rate. I climbed up the rungs and positioned myself properly so that I wouldnt fall if the manhole lid popped up real quick. After about 5 minutes of trying different positions I finally budged it. I really didnt want to go all the way back to our original entrance. I popped my head out and looked around, all clear, yelled down to the squeek to haul ass up.

(Above: Long Hallway)

The cold January air felt sooo good. We headed back to our bikes, but made a detour to see if the guy had come out. He had indeed, he had somehow circled us the whole time without ever back tracking into us, and got out. I was pretty impressed.

Ahhh... Just to take a few photos...

 

Onto Santas Cave Part 2