By Frank Bures
Madison Magazine
Special To Channel 3000

Sitting at the library one day, I was looking at an old map of the area around Madison when I saw something strange. It was called "Richardson Cave" and it wasn't far from my house in Verona. When I looked for it on modern maps, it was gone.

A little later I came across an old book that talked about some of the first white settlers in the region, two of whom ventured into this cave one morning in the mid-1800s. The men apparently got quite a ways in but soon ran out of candles, so they burned their shirts instead. When those were gone, they sat down and "felt themselves worst than lost--buried alive." Eventually, their brothers came to find them, but then the four of them couldn't find their way out of the tricky passages until they saw arrow markings on the walls that pointed the way. They all emerged around midnight.

When I spent some time in New Zealand, I went rafting on rivers that ran through underground tunnels, with glowworms hanging on the ceiling. When I was in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, I stood in the mouth of one of the world's biggest caves and watched millions of bats stream out into the evening sky. In Washington state, I crawled through a strange lava tube called Ape Cave, rumored to be the home of Bigfoot.

I find all these places oddly beautiful and alluring, where time passes on a different scale. These are spaces that took shape over millions of years. The caves seem removed, a place that was here before us and that will remain when we're gone.

I decided to try to find Richardson Cave, and it was not easy. Eventually I located the landowner on whose property the cave is now. I asked if he'd mind if I went into it, and he said sure, but that I should wait until it dried out from all the rains. I waited a week.

The day I got there, it was dry and sunny. My feet kicked up dust as I walked across the cornfield to get to the entrance. Just as I found it, three kids pulled up behind me on four-wheelers.

"My dad's been in there," one of them told me. "He said there's a room big enough to turn a semi around in."

"Anyone want to go in with me?" I asked.

"No way," said one.

"I'm not going in there," said the second.

The third just shook his head.

I turned around, got down on all fours and started crawling.

The ceiling got very low fast, and pretty soon I was dragging myself through the mud, my fingers sinking in deep. My head hit the jagged roof, and my knees pushed off sharp rocks. There were raccoon prints in the mud, and I half expected to see a pair of eyes ahead of me. But it was just dark and water and mud.

To continue reading, visit MadisonMagazine.com.