It was only 9:00am when I arrived at Ken's house to meet the other people who would be going to Surprise Cave with me. They were two first-timers and a novice, all of whom had to borrow helmets and lights, so to help get us off to an early start I had come by the previous evening and gotten them set with borrowed gear. When I arrived at Ken's house they had already finished breakfast, and Jim, who was helping lead the trip, had pulled in right behind me, so I was sure that we would be getting a quick start. Little did I know how well these new cavers would fit in at OTR or as members of the Central Jersey Grotto; it somehow took until 10:00 to get out of the driveway, and after stopping to buy some cave food it took a few more minutes to locate Mike, who had ducked into the antique store across the street. We finally pulled into the parking lot at 11:30, and by the time we got changed we were ready for another afternoon of caving.

I have never really considered Surprise to be a beginner cave, certainly not with Pompey's so close by, but since there were two trips planned for Surprise on Sunday I decided that Knox would be our Sunday trip, so that we might find Surprise a bit less crowded. I also didn't think that I could get two absolute beginners to go through the Gunbarrel, so our choice was pretty much made for us. Where we would go in Surprise would depend on how the beginners were doing.

Since none of our three novices had been to Surprise we thought we would take them on the whirlwind tour of the highlights, and see Heaven and the New Discovery. Normally this is a moderately easy trip. We took the standard route to the Round Room, and then... What? Yes, "standard route." You mean you didn't know that there was another way to get there? Well, as I was saying, we went to the Round Room, and climbed into Heaven, much to the delight of those who hadn't been there before. Next we headed to the top of the Round Room, where I always get confused about what is where, and where what I'm looking for is, and as usual, I didn't get to where I thought I was going. You see, for some reason I always expect to be able to head south along the top of the Round Room, but that's actually quite difficult as I don't have much of a knack for going to parts of a cave where there isn't any passage to speak of, and heading south from the top of the Round Room there isn't much passage to speak of. As it happens, though, if you descend slightly and then head south there is a bit of passage, and this is the route that we followed. In a few yards we reached a small room where most of the group paused while Jim and I explored. While I crawled through a small hole that went up, Jim crawled through a small hole that went down, and while I was reaching a dead end, Jim was deciding that his route went, and it went down at that. A quick look at the map and we decided we should all go that way, as it appeared that we had found another route back to the Bat Room. We crawled for a bit and we descended and in short order we found ourselves amongst huge breakdown blocks with large spaces between them, and all those spaces went down. So much for a moderately easy beginner trip. Mike and Anthony (you remember Mike and Anthony, this is a story about Mike and Anthony and their excellent adventure?) having never been caving, and having never been climbing either, were having quite a time. Mike in particular was discovering that caving is not too bad, but climbing in a cave is not his cup of tea. And here we were standing on a huge piece of breakdown looking down over the side about twenty feet and listening to the sound of the stream somewhere below that, and I was telling Mike and Anthony "this is the way we want to go". Jim and I began exploring again, and eventually worked our way down to the stream, and found ourselves at the beginning of the Bat Room, right where you begin climbing above the stream when following the standard route to the Round Room. So you see, there are other ways to get to the Round Room, and we had just found one of them, thereby greatly increasing my knowledge on navigating through Surprise.

Now that we were where we were, we decided that it was time to see the New Discovery, and headed upstream. By the standard route. Well, okay, by the only route. We were almost to the pretties when Jim announced that he had a dinner date that he was about to be late for. We decided that seeing the pretties was more important than punctuality, so we hurried (in a calm, safe and sedate manner, of course) on to the end where we paused for a few photos, and to climb down into the secret grotto that you probably don't know about, but should be able to find now that I've tipped my hand. We then exited the cave and nearly got Jim to his dinner date on time.

Despite the excellent time we had all experienced, Mike declined to come caving at Knox the following day, so Jen, Anthony and I headed off to Emily's for paperwork, and then to the cave. We took a rapid tour of the southern part of the cave, noting to our dismay that some vandal had apparently cleaned out his garage and dumped his refuse in the cave, forming a small pile near the end of the Indian Passage: a wheelbarrow, a bucket or two, and some shovels and pry bars. We briefly considered that this was evidence of a dig, but quickly realized the truth after looking at the huge pile of cobbles just waiting to crush anybody so optimistic as to actually try to dig their way beyond the present terminus.

There being only a small amount of reasonably sized passage south of the Gunbarrel, we soon found ourselves looking into a passage only slightly larger than a coat hanger. Fortunately all three of us would fit through a coat hanger, so I figured that we would have no trouble with the Gunbarrel. Anthony, being on only his second caving trip, was slightly skeptical, and Jen, who has been caving only several times, was perhaps more skeptical, but I assured them that people much larger then any of us had been through at least twice. That is, each of those people had been through at least twice, rather than at least two people having been through. There was some discussion of the fact that, at least to date, everybody that has been through the Gunbarrel has been through it at least twice, and some people may have been through it twenty or thirty times, but nobody has been through it thirty one times, or three times.

I suggested that Anthony, as the least experienced person, should go second. In the event that he were to freak halfway through there would be calming voices on each end. I further suggested that Jen should go first. I don't recall if I explained the rationale to them, but I figured that this way if Anthony were to actually get stuck, or freak so badly as to become incapacitated, I would be unhindered in my efforts to go and initiate a rescue. I made this decision in the sincere and magnanimous belief that this was in the best interests of the safety of my party. A good trip leader, of course, sees the total picture and I was aware of the great safety afforded to me, personally, by this strategy; I swear that this knowledge affected my decision making not one bit. Really.

As it worked out Jen was more nervous than Anthony, but none of us actually had any difficulty. At least no more than should be expected when crawling 47 feet through a space that is 14 by twenty inches. At one point while Jen was resting near the far end I heard a quiet but distinct, rhythmic thumping sound, at a rate of perhaps 90-100 times per minute; I can't be sure, but I think the passage was actually amplifying the sound of Jen's heartbeat. Listen for this if you should find yourself in the position to do so. After a short pause in the Signature Room we decided that in order to postpone our return through the Gunbarrel we should go see some more cave. Some crawling, some walking, and some slithering brought us to the Mud Room, where Jen and Anthony were introduced to Mr. and Miss Knox. Mr. Knox wasn't as excited by our visit as he had been the last time I had seen him. Having gotten a late start again, it was now time to head home, so we returned to the Gunbarrel. Guess who went first? Why did you think I was trip leader instead of trip coordinator?