Hamilton Cave (Airblower) - 6/04/2023

Harriet Flynn reporting

7 of us went on a trip to Hamilton Cave with the plan of going through The Airblower. On the trip we had Casey, Eric, John, Araya, Katie, Chris, and Harriet.

We gathered at the Franklin BP station at 10:30am and then made it in the cave around 11:20am. We crawled our way back to The Airblower in a pretty quick 30 minutes. Casey took the lead and headed in first, he slithered through the 30ft long, very tight squeeze, and made it look easier than it was. Next was Eric, John, and then Harriet.

To get through the 30ft squeeze we had to be on our left side, left arm straight ahead and then right arm either like a t-rex or behind us. For some of the squeeze there was no space to move our heads and the cave was touching both hips and both sides of our rips. Once through we climbed down about a 10ft drop to relax and catch our breath before heading back through. Casey explored a little further doing another tight, but way shorter, squeeze that took him to a room. We then all headed back out, which seemed significantly harder than the way in, being more uphill and less places to push off when starting the squeeze.

We all took a quick snack break and then headed towards the Old Room to explore all the growing formations. That area of the cave is very different from the parts we had been in, lots of water dripping and active formations. We spent some time exploring and then headed out of the cave swinging past a few shields. We got out around 2:30, cleaned up and then headed for ice cream.

photo by KAtie Vic