I’m slowly learning a few rules about living with stress, or more like how to reduce stress when traveling. The last few weeks have really hit me hard physically – something about lack of sleep, emotional breakdowns and pushing myself too hard are taking a toll. I look like crap with big bags and dark circles under my eyes. So I need to take it easy on this trip and maybe just relax, have some fun, and not worry about getting perfect pictures.
But last night was not a good start. I decided to stay overnight in Seattle, so I’d just have the flight to Sitka in the morning. I’m glad I did that. I had forgotten about Labor Day weekend – not a good time to be traveling. At any rate, I booked a night at the airport Hilton Hotel – a nice place. Unfortunately, they gave me the Arachnid Suite, which comes with one of those big beauties (Giant House Spider) free of charge. I did not realize that until I came back from a pleasant dinner, and found this waiting patiently for me on the bed. I chased it off, but it managed to hide somewhere else in the room. Rather than risk spending a night with at least one 2” spider (it might have had friends), I called the front desk and they quickly moved me into an enormous suite – which was thankfully free of spiders.
So along with a new rule of never booking the Arachnid Suite in a hotel again, my other new rule is to do anything you can to avoid stress at the airport. Joining Clear was number one – it really made a difference traveling on a major holiday, especially in Seattle. What a zoo. The second rule is to pay for the airline lounge if you don’t get a complimentary pass. I’m writting this, sitting in a wonderful, relaxing Alaska Airline lounge, with a nice latte and a blueberry scone, watching the planes take off. The gates are all packed, with people sitting on the floor. Been there done that in my consulting days. It’s all about me now.
Time for another latte, and then head to the gate.
OK, after three caverns, there really is nothing new in terms of features to see. The last one (Lake Shasta) covered them all, and had a light show to boot. Hard to beat that, so why do anymore of these? Well, this one has something unique – a 170 step spiral staircase, built from parts of a famous WWI/WWII battleship, and the second largest cavern in the state. That and the fact that I want to complete the top 5 caverns in Northern California…maybe there’s some kind of award for that. Probably not. Maybe I’ll make my own t-shirt, like I did for half dome. Or not.
The Moaning Cavern is located between Murphy’s and Angels Camp in Calaveras County, if you know the area. It’s about a 2 hour drive from home. For this trip, I found a partner in crime, only after promising to visit a winery afterwards for lunch and vino. Some folks are easy to bribe.
Anxious spelunkers
This is another touristy tour – they offer two varieties. The Spiral Tour just covers the main cavern, reached via the staircase, and nothing more once you reach the bottom. The Adventure tour is more like real spelunking, through a well established route. No lighting or paths – all crawling and climbing. It sounds interesting, but not for my 73 year old body. Been there, done that, don’t need to prove anything to myself or anyone else. Now get off my lawn. So yes, we are doing the former, not the latter.
Cave Map – very large cave, very little of which was seen on tour
Much like all the other caverns, gold miners found it, and once they realized it was limestone and there ain’t no gold in them thar rocks, some of them decided they could make a buck giving mine tours. For this one, it has an entry which leads down to a really, really big empty space – you can fit the Statue of Liberty in there with room to spare. The only way down was to rappel from a ledge. Fun for some, but not conducive for large groups of non-climbers. I’ve rappelled that far in my rock climbing day’s…I’m not interested anymore. At any rate, an owner came up with a bright idea – the US Navy was modernizing some of the WW1 battleships which had these big “birdcage” towers for the rear (or main) mast, which had an observation/control room on top. These cylindrical towers were the perfect size to go from bottom to top of this enormous room. Just add a spiral staircase inside the cylinder and you have an easy way to get in and out the cavern (10 stories worth of stairs). Brilliant. They did also offer visitors the opportunity to rappel down for a while….they have a photo of Tom Hanks doing it. Glad he survived.
A side note here – this particular battleship mast came from a famous ship – the USS Maryland. She was one of the survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, where 6 out of 8 battleships from the Pacific Fleet were sunk. The Maryland was inboard of the USS Oklahoma which capsized – it was relatively lightly damaged by bombs.
Model of the USS Maryland – you can see the rear tower mast
So, on to the cave. It’s vacation time in the West, so we had a fairly large tour group, with a lot of kids. We managed to get to the head of the crowd, so did not have to deal with kid-jams on the long staircase down. You first have a few stories worth of steep steps in narrow passages – these lead to a landing at the head of the spiral stairs. An amazing view when you see how vast this cavern is. Once we were all gathered, I turned on the GoPro, and headed down the stairs. I forgot to mention – this time around, I carried my phone, my Sony DSLR and I wore a chest mount harness for my GoPro camera. I looked like a total geek. Well, more than I usually do.
This was a very strange experience – the tower is right next to one wall, so you are getting up close and personal views of the cave formations as you spiral down. The stairs are well spaced and not too small, so it was an easy “hike” down to the bottom. Once you get to the bottom, the view from the bottom up was pretty amazing.
Looking out from the cageThe Tower
The tour does not go any further – the guide describes all the features for a half hour, takes photos of each group which you can buy (no thanks), and then does a demonstration of what you are able to see with just a candle. Basically nothing. We did the same thing in one of the other caverns. There were a number of interesting features but quite frankly, the highlight is tower. The guide did point out some of the holes that the “Adventure Tour” crawls through. That pretty much confirmed my decision to pass on it. Here’s a few feature shots:
The Alien
So after the candle light display, the guide told us to head back up and out. Not wanting to wait behind all the kids, I got to the stairs first, turned on the GoPro again and headed up. It was not that tough a climb – I need to let my cardiologist know that I did what amounts to a stress test without any problems. The photos below are two of the narrow, steep stairs going from the platform back up to the entrance. This is not a natural passage – it was blasted out to avoid the straight drop from the top.
And for the fun of it, here is my video of the climb up from the bottom (two of them actually). It’s a bit long but interesting to watch.
The long and winding road (going up)
Since the tour was relatively short, and we were surrounded by wineries, my friend an I found a nice one to visit (Hatcher Winery), sampled some wines, and headed into Murphy’s for a nice lunch before heading back home. Overall, a very pleasant day. The cave was worth visiting to experience the spiral staircase, and to see the huge cavern room which had some interesting features. And we did get some good exercise going up and down.
Since I have such an incredible wealth of knowledge on tourist caving now, here are my does and don’ts when going on one of these cavern tours:
1 – Wear comfortable walking shoes, preferably light hiking half-boots. Most of the tours involve climbing steep, narrow stairs, and even the well paved trails can be wet and slippery. Sandals, flip-flops and Crocs may lead to slipping, and possibly wet and muddy feet. 2 – Check the Website to find out what the cavern temperature and humidity is and dress appropriately. That can change depending on the season. Some of the caves are quite chilly and damp. Shorts seem to be OK except for the ones with narrow passages – you could wind up with dirty legs/dirty pants. Be prepared. 3 – If you bring a camera (other than a phone), make sure it’s tethered to your body with a strap. And try to avoid leaning over railing with your phone to take pictures. One of the caverns had a case filled with camera’s, phones, GoPro’s and all kinds of stuff that visitors drop, and they only clean these places out once in a while. If you drop it, you will not get it back. Carrying a heavy DSLR is also problematic in caves with narrow passages or low overhangs – it’s difficult protecting your camera and your body at the same time. 4 – Most of the tours do a lights-out experience somewhere along the way – it can be frightening for adults, and terrifying for little kids. Make sure they are ready for it and you are holding on to them. 5 – And most important of all, especially for old folks like me, hit the bathroom just before you start the tour!. There’s no place “to go” once you are down there.
My next trip will be the Mercer Cavern, just outside of Murphy’s and more like California Cavern. Since I’ll be in Murphy’s, I can also check out the Big Tree State Park…it’s above ground and has groves of giant sequoia trees. A nice change. And unfortunately, while doing some Google searches on other things to do in California, I discovered yet another cave to visit. Sigh. Once you get started with caves, it’s hard to stop. Sort of like snacking from a large bag of M&M’s. This latest cavern is in the Mojave Desert, so visiting this summer is not an option. The tour requires a .75 mile hike along a narrow trail from the visitor center to the entry, and the cave does have some low and very narrow passages, but the photos they have on the Website are beautiful, so I have added this one to my list. A real adventure in the fall, sometime between my Alaska and Antarctica trips. I have to consider whether I really need any more adventures in between two major ones. I got time to think about it.
The Traveling Widower 