Pack 1714 took a trip to DeSoto Caverns and spent the night underground on July 20th! The Scouts all had a great time, there were a number of different outdoor activities they got to do during the afternoon. They all really liked the Cave Crawl which was a large structure they could crawl through that simulated spelunking through a very tight cave. Many of the Scouts went through that one at least a dozen times. They also had a blast panning for gemstones and shooting the nerf ball air cannons.
After an afternoon of fun activities, we descended into the cave using nothing but small kerosene lamps for an authentic experience of what it was like for Hernando DeSoto when he first explored the cave around 300 years ago. We had a great tour guide that explained a lot of history of the cave and saw several laser light shows. This is an active cave, so the kids found it pretty amusing that they got a lot of “cave kisses” as the ceiling dripped water on them occasionally as we walked around. After a great day of fun, everyone was tired and it was quite nice to sleep in the 60 degree temperature of the cave instead of the 90 degrees above ground!
