Tunnel Walls all ridged and Dripping

Suspected buried passages beneath where we were crawling.

IMG_6884, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

We suspected that the tunnels within which we were crawling - though broken into several smaller caves - might actually be an interconnected warren of passages simply blocked by thousands of years of porcupine feces.

In many places the tunnels appear to have a lower level from where the water may have welled up though the passage straight ahead was filled to the roof with prickly - spine encrusted - mounds of porcupine droppings. I pushed one such diminishing passage until my face was pressed close to the earth and the smell hurt my lungs. I wondered about histoplasmosis and the like and thought that I should back out for my own good health.

At the upper end of the ridge - while hacking toward the upper end of the known cave passages I found a blind valley that seemed to drop to the level of the tunnels within the ridge. The remarkable thing though was that the valley appeared to end quite abruptly in a pothole that was clogged almost to its rim by leaves. I wonder if this was an entrance that led down to the lower levels that we had suspect ran beneath where we were crawling.