Five of us stayed at the cabin all weekend: myself, Eddie Gonzalez, Chris Beauchamp, Gary Burns and Steve Janesky. All are from the CCG, but being our neighboring grotto, they let me slide in on their weekend action.

Anyone visiting upstate NY near Albany/Schoharie counties should definitely take advantage of the cabin owned and maintained by the NSS. Just get permission from Peter Teresco first.

We headed into Knox cave to try to reach the Alabaster room and beyond. Recently virgin passage had been discovered, but a survey team was inside at the same time we entered, so we had to leave that adventure for another time.

Knox is always exciting simply because of it's gunbarrel passage that tests the fortitude of many a beginner caver. Even more challenging in the up and down, climbing crawl leading to the Alabaster Room. One must climb the 25' "Great Divide" to begin, and from there it is pure hands and knees. The passage has an above and below section to it, but neither allows straight passage through it, so the caver is constantly wondering "should I go high, or low?" just to make a wrong choice, squeeze or back out and try the other. This can wear one down, but when the end is reached, the beautiful formations in the Alabaster Room make it all worthwhile.

We spent a good 4 hours in Knox. A few cavers descended into Crossbones Cave nearby to get vertical practice while one group finished up in Knox.

Sunday, four of us (minus Steve Janesky) headed into Gage Caverns where we chose to descend the 50' pit via rapelling instead of the ladder. Once inside we decided to do the "dry" passage downstream. Funny thing though, we all came out wet. Isn't that always the story of caves in the NE?

We made it to the end after the long "Balls Down Crawl." This was both exciting and challenging as we had to often brush our faces and chests into the chilly waters to pass under the one foot high squeezes.

Unfortunately no pictures were taken at Gage. But there is always the "wet" passage, and who knows?