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Memorial Day Camping

by Kelli Hedding, Copyright May 27, 2004, all rights reserved. 706 views

We arrived Thursday evening just before dark and rushed to set up before the storms hit. We set up within 15 minutes; just as we got the last rain fly on and the final tent stake in it started to pour down rain and the skies began to roar. Thankfully the storm past quickly and the rest of the evening was pleasant. The only other family that came Thursday evening was the Wilcox family.

The next day Leon and Kelli took the Wilcox family spelunking. Our first cave, Sheep’s Cave, had an entrance like a giant throat and the passageway led us to the stomach of the hill. Fortunately the cave was not carnivorous so we did not find any skeletons there. We went into a second cave called Lone Hill Onyx. It was a bit wetter than the previous cave and its passageways were a bit tighter so we didn’t go very far. Before we left, however, Leon squeezed into a small passageway just as large as his body and found that it opened up to where he could stand up. He was itching to explore further but the Wilcox family had already turned back and it is not safe to explore a cave with only two people.

From Misc Images

Later that afternoon Leon and I hiked to and explored a third cave, Indian Cave. As we were coming back we were met by Eric, a naturalist in the park. We got to talking about spelunking and he offered to take us into Fisher Cave, a large tour cave in the park. He was taking a small group of people in past the tour route to the waterfall room. There were two small passageways, he told us, into the waterfall room, both of which were really tight squeezes. On our way out Leon discovered a third passageway that Eric was not aware of; it too was tight but it was still neat for Leon to have discovered it. Fisher Cave was beautiful; by far the grandest cave we saw this weekend. We arrived back at camp late after everyone had gone to bed. We had caved from 8 pm to 10:30 pm. The latest we had ever caved. It was really neat to be caving in sections that the public rarely sees.

The next morning we took another group back to Lone Hill Onyx. The group was of more experienced cavers and we were able to explore the entire thing. Lucas and Jason and Adam Stanford had arrived while we were in Fisher Cave the night before. We met the Reynolds, Joe, Mary and Zach, at the visitor’s center. It was a very grand cave; much larger than I had expected. After lunch we wanted to cave in Bear Cave, but were unable. We instead went hiking in a creek to find Little Hamilton Cave but were unable to find it until it was time to return to camp. We arrived back at camp and Leon and Lucas were immediately summoned to go on a rescue mission to rescue one of the families that had gone inner-tubing and were believed to be lost. Everyone returned safely from that ordeal just in time for the potluck. We had the most beautiful evening fellowshipping with the rest of the camping club.

The following day a canoe trip was planned. Leon and Lucas did not join us; they were not interested after their rescue mission the evening before. Kelli, Jason and Adam Stanford came, however. They practiced flipping canoes at one point. The Stanford’s weren’t exactly sure what Kelli had in mind and she had a little trouble getting them to shove off without paddles (the current was pretty strong) but she finally convinced them that they did not need paddles. So there they were out in middle of the river paddling furiously with their hands and Adam and Jason still didn’t know what was going on. They were still looking to Kelli to tell them what to do when she leapt out of the canoe head first and completely flipped it. One of the bystanders described their faces as shocked as Kelli hurled herself from the canoe flipping them in. They all enjoyed it very much. The power of the river was learnt to be very strong.

Lucas, Leon and another young boy named Nathaniel Schmidt hiked down Hamilton Creek to the Meramec River and tubed down to Green’s Cave while everyone else was canoeing. We then explored this cave and floated the rest of the way back to the campgrounds.

The next day, Monday was the final day. We returned to Sheep’s cave with some camping club families. After lunch, Leon, Jason, Adam and Kelli returned to explore Little Hamilton. Little Hamilton has the best formations that we had seen at Meramec State Park. The soda straws were really impressive. At the back of the cave is a clay sculpture that looked like a sitting man. We then left for home.

From Misc Images

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