The Aggie Speleological Society visited Midnight Cave in Austin, TX. To prepare for this cave, everyone descending vertically into the cave had their vertical skills checked and practiced up-climbing and repelling. The next day after a service project, we went to a local park to find the cave and get all of our gear ready. Rich Zarria and (Other guy) set up the vertical rigging and set up a redirect, two redirects were set up so two people could descend at once. The redirect was made by tying the main rigging knots around a tree to the right of the cave looking in from the entrance, and the redirect was tied around a tree to the left of the cave entrance in the depression where the cave entrance is. The rope was fed through a carabiner attached to the redirect and the rope dropped down into Midnight Cave. 

To descend into Midnight Cave, we repelled in between the main rigging knots and the redirect until we got to the redirect where we then clipped the redirect carabiner above our rack and finished repelling into the cave. Two people repelled into the cave at a time and four people total explored the cave while the others waited. When we reached the bottom of the cave it opened up into a large room with a waterfall in the corner. The waterfall flowed over a flowstone formation and fell into a small lake where we could see tadpoles, and frogs. There were also salamanders found in some of the crevices on the cave walls. The cave was so incredible and it was so interesting that it was right underneath a park and filled with so much life. The cave was beautiful, humid, and warm; it felt amazing since it was cold and windy outside the day we went!

By: Bailey Ohlson