Man In Raincoat Falls Down Dark, Wet Cave

A man from Climax, Minnesota had a harrowing ordeal last Friday night as he took a shot at becoming an amateur spelunker (cave explorer).

Richard B. Johnson, 27 has long had a fascination with caves. According to an interview he granted, he said he has spent many hours looking for caves and has occasionally found one. Yet for some reason he has always had a problem with hesitation and has never found the courage to actually try to enter the cave.

“Usually when I find a cave, I’m excited,” said Johnson. “A lot of times you have to look rather hard. The entrance can be rather hard to find, being as how many times it will be buried under grass or bushes. Yet on occasion, one will just be right out in the open; almost like it’s waiting for you and somehow calling your name.”

Johnson continued, “The feeling I get when I actually discover a new cave is unlike anything in the world. Getting to see it for the first time, to go exploring around the entrance and investigate the area is something that has always tickled my fancy. Yet up until this past time, I had never really been able to go in and check out the cave. Perhaps it was just some sliver of something left from how I was raised, when my mother was always saying, ‘Dickie, don’t you EVER go into one of those caves. Caves are evil!’ Or maybe it was just my fear of the possible consequences. I’m really not sure.

“This one was different though. It was perfect. This one was just out there; no grass or bushes in the way to have to try and work around so this time I actually took the plunge and went in.”

As Johnson inspected the entrance to the cave, he discovered that it was not only deep and dark and partially obscured by the sides of the entrance, but that it was very wet and was emanating heat from inside. As a precaution, Johnson put on a raincoat before even attempting to get in.

After a few minutes of letting his excitement build, Dick took the plunge and went into the cave.

“At first it was a bit frustrating,” recalls Johnson. “There was all this excess material from the sides that I had to push and hold back so it wouldn’t cave in on me and cover the hole. There was also a piece sticking out above the entrance that I thought I could use for a handhold, but I was totally unaware of what it really was.”

As Mr. Johnson grabbed the unknown device above the hole in an attempt to maintain his balance, a large volume of moisture began pouring from the entrance to the cave.

“I thought it was rather strange,” remembers Johnson, with a still-bewildered look on his face. “I couldn’t figure out why touching the protuberance would cause all the water to come pouring out. In a way though, I was like a little kid and I thought it was kind of fun, so I kept playing around with it and amazingly the water kept coming.”

As Johnson was playing with his newfound toy on top of the cave, his happiness was momentarily interrupted by a moment of terror.

“While I was at the entrance to the cave, playing like a kid that was turning a sprinkler on and off, there was a massive shudder that came from the cave and which shook the area around it. At first I was terrified that I was going to miss my chance to actually get into the cave, but then I looked and I saw that the masses which had been covering the entrance had actually pulled back some. I was now more eager than ever to get inside.”

Johnson still had to push back the material on either side of the entrance a bit, but it was much easier after the tremor which rocked the cave and surrounding area. Johnson proceeded slowly and carefully as he entered the cave head-first.

“That was one tight squeeze,” tells Johnson, with a boyish grin on his face. “I tell ya, there’s no way I was prepared for how snug and firm it was in there. But you know, it only made the experience that much more enjoyable because hey, I kind of like a challenge.”

The initial excitement of entering the cave soon turned to horror though as Johnson proceeded into the cave. Due to the darkness inside the hole, he didn’t see that there was a slippery slope going down, and he fell straight to the bottom.

“Yeah, that was something I wasn’t expecting at all. One moment I’m having fun trying to push my way through the narrow walls just inside the entrance and then I’m falling down this deep cavern.”

Dick stopped when he hit the end of the passage that he fell down. He landed up against something that looked like the face of a time-lock safe.

“This may sound a bit strange, but although my fall down the shaft was unexpected,” Mr. Johnson hesitates for a second, “it was actually a very enjoyable experience. I think it was due to the amount of moisture in the cave; I just slid through there like a little kid on a Slip-N-Slide. I’m sure that if the cave was dry that it would be a completely different story and that I may have gotten serious injuries.

“When I got to the bottom though, and saw that safe-type thing down there, I decided I wanted nothing to do with whatever was in there. So I just sat in the cave for a little while, basking in the ambience so-to-speak.”

After spending some time soaking up his surroundings, Dick decided it was time to try and get out. This proved to be a bit of an adventure all its own.

“I figured I’d just try and crawl back out, and so that’s what I did. Well, I tried anyways. I got pretty far, but that dang cave was so wet that I just slipped right back down to the bottom. I kept trying the ‘slow and cautious’ approach for some time. Yet after a while I thought that maybe my approach was wrong and that I shouldn’t be going so slow and that maybe I needed to just hit it with everything I had. I spent quite a while just going up, then falling back down.

“I suppose that the whole process of going up and down was kind of fun too, like a game. But it was very physically demanding and I was working very, very hard. I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but I actually worked myself so hard that I threw up all over my raincoat.”

After taking a bit of a rest and recuperating after the throw-up experience, Dick eventually found his way out of the cave.

“It was definitely one of the most fun and rewarding things I’ve ever done,” said Johnson. “I never imagined it could be like this. I’ll definitely be doing much more of this in the future.”

For Allie-the only girl I know who can be just as big of a pervert as me (especially while talking on the phone at 3:30 in the morning). I love ya girl (for many more reasons than just that).
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“Alive in the superunknown
First it steals your mind
And then it steals your soul.”
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Soundgarden