***UPDATE from Lisa Hall at Laurel Caverns, 12/26/06***:

"Remember the big rock in the ceiling you guys uncovered? Well, it came down, all 300 pounds of it. Actually, that was the first indication we were in a passage that had been open at one time. We now have solid bedrock on the left side of the dig and the cave is taking us to the right. It's an exciting time as theories are being proven by these little discoveries." (You can see the end of this rock at the top of photo 15. They sure have been digging like crazy since we were there).

I met up with some fellow Cleveland Grotto members at the camping area at Laurel Caverns.

After waiting for everyone to arrive and situating ourselves we geared up and walked down to the visitors center to start caving. After speaking with the owner we decided on caving first then digging around 5 PM. She didn't want us digging while people were still touring the cave.

Laurel is a neat cave to explore. However, we did encounter a couple yellow helmeted 'wild caving' tour groups which we had to get around. At one point our group was sandwiched between the two tours. It was the busiest I've ever seen a cave.

The digging part was hard work. The Pittsburgh Grotto had already dug out a long passage way, filling over 1,600 buckets. The buckets are dumped out in a medium sized room off to the side of the entrance to the passage which they predict will be filled by the time they're done. That's a huge undertaking looking at the empty, except for breakdown, room.

Our group filled 103 buckets of the moist clay in a couple of hours. That sounds like a lot of buckets, but we only advanced the tunnel only a couple feet or so. I'm glad I was there to help make that 'dent'.