Joe

Steve

I think I read your article on Dead Man’s cave. That’s what made me go back there! I realized that I had only gotten into the upper room the first time, and had not gone deep enough! I wondered what the big deal about Dead Man’s cave was! (lol) I tried to send you an email via the Quinnipiac address that the article had (If memory serves me) but the link was dead. I’ll add in the URL of my website – it has a contact link for my email.

Trust me, I dont mind spiders at all, but I totally agree with our Damned CT guys in leaving this place behind… The Meta Ovalis species in Spider Cave is a daunting creature indeed. They are harmless, but they are about 2.5 inches or so in size, brick red with long legs and brown belly, and they build big webs that feel like old electrical wire strung through the cave. You don’t (usually) see these puppies until after you are inside the cave and then you notice their somewhat intimidating shadows on the wall, skittering around in your head lamp, rushing across their broken web to climb up the rocks and stare at you. Yeahhh… I’ll take the bats, please!

In any event; I was typing too fast when I posted my earlier comment, and gave the wrong trail for my statement… the “Cave of the Black Well” is NOT located on the blue trail, it is on the WHITE trail. In fact – if you know where to look – very close to the white trail…

Also, it is ostensibly part of the “Esophagus Cave” system from what I can determine. Apparently ( I am finding these things out through a lot of research online) that whole [small] cave network over by “Canyon Pit” has about a million different names. Ray Wilson’s list calls it “Cave of the Black Well”, and I kind of like the tone of that, but the most prevalent monniker I keep seeing is, of course, Esophagus. (the “Black Well” part of it?) From the way I piece it all together, Esophagus is the vertical pit that you chimney down for about 15 feet. It looks like a man-hole in the rock-pile, and is very easy to miss; Until you look down and see how far the darkness goes… At the bottom there is a fairly good sized cave that you can squeeze into with about a 7 foot high, sloped cieling. There’s probably room for about three or four adults. I have not seen so much as a spider down there, and the area is not secluded enough for bats, so if you dont mind dropping into a pit to get to it, it seems fairly empty.

There is a cave off the green trail with copperheads? Wow, I might know where it is. Believe it or not I have actually gone to the Giant to deliberately take photos of copperheads. Beautiful snake, and hey – they are only venomous if they bite you. As long as you keep that from happening, they’re not so bad. LOL

Chuck
http://www.seefranke.com

I used to take students to Dead Man’s Cave as extra credit. I only had 2 (out of maybe 50) freak out and not do it. But if they had seen that many spiders, no doubt more would have balked. So, I think we can give the Damned Connecticut crew a break here. They just had the wrong cave! (P.S. The first time I went up we found a smaller cave inhabited by copperheads, too)

Now, I’ve never heard of this Black Well cave! Please, Chuck, tell me more!

The whole place is covered with ridiculous ammounts of graffiti, but it is still pretty cool. The hardest part is shimmying down into the drop-in room, so you may not want to go alone – as getting back out without a rope is possible, but it will tear you up a bit in the process. I would reccomend people not leave rubbish and stuff inside (only footprints) and try to imagine what it looks like without all the spray paint tagging, but cool nonetheless.

Now…. there is also a drop down pit that leads to another cave called “Black Well” on the other side of the mountain, not far from the blue trail………………

(Sorry about the wierd spacing on this. I must have accidentally hit “submit” before completing my ramblings.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but what you found here is not Dead Man’s cave. Dead Mans is about 200 yards farther down the green trail (where the yellow trail bisects it) and is MUCH bigger. What you have discovered here is actually named “Spider Cave” for the unpleasantly large species of Cave-Dweeling Orb spider (Meta Ovalis) that lives there. I have gotten in there with those bad boys, and believe me – they are not all that happy to receive visitors. I never got down into the actual lower part of the “C” since that is where the spiders breed. Personally, I kind of like spiders, but this is… uhhh… too much of a “good thing” in too cramped a space, if you know what I mean.

The “official” Dead Man’s Cave is about parallel with a 100 foot telephone pole pine tree (use it as a marker) and can be reached by climbing up the talus pile (watch out for Copperheads. Seriously) or down the 100 foot cliff. It does not look like a cave entrance. It looks more like a crooked, sideways, ‘slash’ in the side wall of the cliff. You climb up on some rocks to get to the angled entrance, then down inside.

The upper room slants down to a “hole” in the right wall with a log against the back wall to help you down about a six foot drop. Once you lower yourself in (feet first, please) you will see that the floor of the hole angles down into a ‘trough’ with another man-hole sized opening at the lower end. (Basically you are now zig-zagging with the way you just entered the cave) push yourself along, feet first and CAREFULLY lower yourself into that second hole, and you will find yourself dropping into a LARGE