COLDWATER CAVE

December 17, 2011



Coldwater Cave

When Windy City Grotto Told me about cold water cave and how it is situated in decorah iowa, I was eager to get out there and check out this cave system.  It is a 17 mile system with cold 48 degree water, beautiful passage rooms and a lot of interesting side passages.  I actually drove through a snow storm early in the morning to get to the house where they have the metal shaft with a ladder that takes you down to the river passage of coldwater cave.  It was a journey in itself just to get out there and took me almost 5 hours to get to the property.   


Coldwater Cave
 After arriving I met up with mark and a group of cavers as we suited up in a full 7mm wetsuit and went down the ladder to the river system.  I decided to go upstream on this trip which took us to some interesting rooms and took us over breakdown piles with some of the most intesting Crinoid Fossils I have seen.  These caves are a bit different as they are said to be over 100,000,000 years old instead of 20,000,000 years like the caves are in Indiana.



Coldwater Cave Passage
We followed the passage up stream and witnessed some of the formations and the section that they call the Sprong.  The sprong is a super low ceiling high water passage where we had to follow a line and literally kiss the ceiling to breathe in order to get to the upper sections of the cave.  I followed a line and slowly worked my way tip toing the ceiling and keeping my lips tight so water would not enter my mouth until I came up into walking passage again.  whew...that was interesting.



Crinoid Fossils in Coldwater Cave
We continued on and witnessed some of the largest fish I have ever seen in the cave.  It must have got in there through a farmers pond or from another source.  We continued up until we go to the three dives section which is where there were long duck unders that mark was not sure about so we stopped where we were at and turned around. The whole trip took around 8 hours total and while I was going through the Sprong, I lost my underwater camea!!! that camera has the picture of the fish that I saw and it is forever lost now.



Crinoid Fossils in Coldwater Cave
I really enjoyed the company I had with me and continued to enjoy the cave while making new friends.  We had a blast and I wanted to come back to visit the downstream section whcih I heard was interesting.




Coldwater Cave

I ended up driving back home after the trip and that made for one long day but it was well worth the effort and time I got to spend out in coldwater cave.



Coldwater Cave

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