Womer Cave in Perry County, PA

I have now been in this cave twice. The first trip was in early May, 2001 and was with two other grotto members: John Seward and Kevin Dunleavy. I was actually disappointed with this cave trip due to a few factors: (1) we had a map of the cave which we weren't able to follow. This was our own fault due partly to the fact that we didn't get it out often enough nor did we have any reference to distance (that part of the map was missing). (2) We didn't see many formations at all and with the frustration of not knowing where we were, getting very muddy had few rewards and lots of frustration.

The second trip was just Kevin and me. This time, Kevin brought a compass, oriented the map and we consulted it enough to keep our exact location at all times. We soon realized that we saw pretty much every room and passage in the cave during our first visit. We headed to the 'Back Room' which includes a very tight vertical fissure as the only entrance. I hadn't gone in there during our first trip because I had no idea if there would be anything around the tight corner and didn't think I would easily back up through the narrow and steep slippery incline. Since we now knew that there was a room beyond the corner, I attempted the squeeze, assuring myself that if I got stuck, Kevin could reach a hand to me. Void of much variation or hand holds and a foot surface that you could almost slip and fall on, I let gravity help me into the fissure. It was tight enough that I had to breath out, turn my head sideways and shuffle my feet (it's about 5 - 6 inches wide at your feet, about 9 inches wide at chest level and about 12 inches wide in the uppermost area above my head in the second picture). The floor and ceiling are at about a 40 degree incline so getting out of the 'Back Room' was at an inch at a time. Pushing with my feet was mostly useless since the slick mud on the floor provided no traction.

	This is how sloppy the mud was in the bottom of this crevice. I took this picture just after making my way out of the 'Back Room'.
And here is Kevin's slippery new look. (I thought it would be neat to see if I could line up these two pictures from different parts of the cave... I think it worked pretty well.)
	It's not the best picture but this is a gypsum flower that you can easily pass right by and not see although it's right plain view at a junction point, it's about 2.5 feet off the floor under a ledge. Hopefully someday I can get a better picture of it as I think it's one of the better formations to see in Womer Cave.

	There are a few places in this cave where you just don't want to slip and fall.
Where are we John? John? Come on, you helped make this map... remember 15 years ago? We did make it out and you couldn't tell John was dirty in his brown coveralls but Kevin and I were a bit obvious about it.

E-mail me if you like these photos or have questions.