My Sumaguing Cave experience

 It was a bright day and sunny day, we were about to go spelunking at Sagada’s well known Sumaguing cave. When we entered just after 2 minutes of going down we could already see our breath! It was very cool (pun intended) because I have always been fascinated by weird Science things. Before we entered our guide told us to not hold on to each other and just use the rocks to stabilize yourself.

After a quick re-count we started to descend into the cave, it was very very dark. We couldn’t see anything if it weren’t for the guide having a lamp. After going down the cave for a bit we came across a few bats, they were very loud but they didn’t bite. It was very fun!

After a while we went into a part with water, the water was surprisingly clean and, of course, very very cold. We had 2 choices, either try your best to balance yourself and walk on the thin part of the cave or we could just walk through the water. I, being already very tired from the climbing, chose to go through the water. It was very nice, it was cold enough to not be that easy to walk through but it was warm enough to not be impossible to walk though.

After walking through some very cold bit we went deeper into the cave, we took a small break because we were all feeling a bit tired.

Then, we went deeper.. and deeper.. and deeper.. until we reached the very bottom of the cave. When we reached this part we took a few pictures. There was a corner that was very small but surprisingly clean, we held the lamps that the guides brought and took a picture there.

Surprisingly enough, there was an optional part of the cave that went deeper. The guide said it was very hard so I chose not to go since it must have been scary. While waiting for the others my mother felt really tired, so we drank Gatorade and waited for about 5 minutes.

The first thing we had to ascend was a rope on a slightly slanted surface, it looked very menacing but to my surprise it was very easy, we had to keep our legs apart and slowly climb the rope in order to progress.

After that it was climbing very steep and moist rocks  which was really hard since you had to pull your weight and if you fell you would get really hurt, which was easy since the rocks were wet.

After climbing ,for what seemed like an hour, we finally got to a part that wasn’t very steep. But we had to use a ropes, tires, and rope ladders to progress because it was very slippery. Due to my lack of core strength, or any strength at all, this was very hard.

Once the climbing bit was done it was just walking back to the exit, though you still had to be cautions since some rocks were slippery. One of my groupmates was to tired that they slipped and hurt themselves at the very end. I would guess that they were tired because they went into the hard part.

After a few we were able to exit, most of us still able to walk and talk normally. But some of us.. uh.. weren’t able to do those things quite as well.