In-Town Tourist: Crawling through Caves…
Just beyond the berm of the heavily traveled Riverside Drive that crawls alongside Dublin, Ohio, and behind a thick curtain of summer greenery, lies a quieted stream. So still that it lies dry and bare, exposing secrets only to those who care to wander its rubbled path…
While surfing down the side of a ravine on loose dirt and rocks, I was more focused on avoiding posion ivy and spider webs. Not that I really had the luxury of doing much more than note their presence as I slid steadily toward my destination… But once I’d reached the relative stability of the stream bed, and when the clattering of our own descents had faded, the stillness was startling. Cars sped by just above and beyond our vision, but the tall trees and rock face acted as natural buffers against the road sounds. It was as if we’d slipped through the protective wall of a bubble into a serene silence.
When the range of color is narrow, textures and patterns grow more obvious. The swirled holes of watery erosion, the random splatters of moisture and leaves, the moss-haired face peering from a wall of rock, the splintered, decomposing wood of a stump…
We trekked the stream bed, ostensibly looking for fossils, but I found myself equally captivated by the shale walls that formed our corridor. Just ahead was the first cave, a narrow tunnel opening into a rock-walled room with no view but its own entrance/exit.
I confess to a slightly claustrophobic tingling as I crawled beneath dangling webs and through the encroaching neck of solid rock. It reminded me of a free dive I did, years ago, through a coral tunnel in the Caribbean. No wiggle room for hesitations…
But the best was still ahead, up steep waterfalls (without the water) and across an unsteady bed of rocks that kept me alert to my wobbly (surgically enhanced) right ankle. Along the way to “The Well”, my friend pointed out an imbedded snail shell fossil and found a loose snail fossil, a tooth (raccoon or ground hog), a piece of rib, and some coral.
“The Well” required another steep climb up to go down, down, down…
One can barely see the cavity from below. The scant blackened space between elevated trees requires intent to be found. Once up the incline, the hole goes deep, dark, and damp, an emptied natural well that has somehow bent with the whim of the water it might have once contained… Without equipment, we stayed within view of our exit daylight. Next time we’ll go further in; I’m curious to see how far we can travel underground.
I’m looking forward to next time…
