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Our troop went to Eagle Cave in Wisconsin on Friday, January 30, and stayed there until Sunday February 1. It was a fun "camp-in", as Scoutmaster Morrison calls it, because we don't make our own food, there are real toilets instead of latrines, and there is an arcade room. There were a few hiking trails, one of which scouts and other campers hiked along in search of gold nuggets.
The main attraction by far, however, was the cave itself. The main path was high enough to stand and walk in, but almost all, if not all, of the side tunnels were not big enough to stand in. In most, you had to crawl on your hands and knees. Some of the other scouts and I went through holes that most of the adult leaders would not be able to fit through. I had to take off my coveralls to fit through one!
All of the crawling resulted in bruised and sore knees, at least mine were that way. However, don't get me wrong, the excitement and fun of exploring the cave outweighed the bad stuff by far. The cave did not drip like everyone originally thought, so we didn't need to cover ourselves with tarps.
Every scout had at least one buddy, but most had 2 or 3, on Scoutmaster Morrison's recommendation. There were many holes and tunnels to explore, some more difficult to get through than others. All of them were very interesting. There were millions of stalactites and stalagmites, although for the most part they were very small.
It was warm in the cave, and I would not have worn gloves in the cave myself if I had not needed them to protect my hands from getting hurt because of all the crawling, and pulling yourself up onto ledges, etc. On the official website of Eagle Cave, it said that the average temperature was 52 degrees, but I didn't have a thermometer, so I couldn't see for myself what the temperature was.
The food was very good, although we had the same breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. Overall, the campout was very fun. I give it a 9 out of 10 rating. It would be a 10 if it wasn't so hard on my knees!
by Kevin Templeton, Webmaster.