Cave Hunting On Moose Mountain - Middleton NH

Northeast Caver Magazine, which maintains the most comprehensive list of caves within New Hampshire that I am aware of, had at last count over 200 wild caves in their database. 'Wild' means it is not one of our commercial caves, which for New Hampshire rules out just two places - the Polar Caves and Lost River. Everything else on that list is a cave sitting alone in the woods somewhere, waiting to be explored.

Within this treasure trove of a database there is one thing you will not find, and that is any limestone cave created by an underground river. We live in the Granite State, which means unlike those lucky folks down south, instead of long and winding tunnels, our caves are cubby holes and small pockets created by boulders getting tossed around during the last ice age.

A great example of one of these boulder fields is found on the south side of Moose Mountain, a region officially known as the Ellis R. Hatch Jr Wildlife Management Area. There you will find a long ledge littered with thousand of boulders, creating a playground of nooks and crannies to spend an afternoon crawling through.

Our goal this day was to locate and explore the Moose Mountain Cave, the largest of several small caves along this ledge. Between our hike to the mountain and all our searching, my GPS registered just a tick under 3 total miles we traveled that afternoon. And if not for the last ten percent that found us clambering over rocks, this would have been a pleasurable walk with a couple nice sights along the way.

Pleasurable is nice, but it's not something that's going to get me out of bed early on my day off. For that I need adventure. Also, I'm part of a marriage that is one big competition, so this quickly turned into a contest of who could find the official cave first. Bragging rights for the biggest unofficial cave went to my wife Tina, who found a crawlspace that opened into an underground chamber big enough for me to hang out in. Although we referred to it as Tina's Cave, a very old bear trap outside its entrance told us we were not the original finders of this spot.

A fun cave to investigate if you don't mind getting dirty. Or eaten alive.

One of us eventually located Moose Mountain Cave near the top of the ledge, and the fact that I can't remember who it was means it wasn't me. The cave resembles a hallway, and for most people I'm guessing that walking to the end of it is their entire exploration.

But I'm also guessing that good judgement factors into most peoples explorations, and that's where our roads fork. I scoured the cave and found a small hole along the bottom-right wall which led to a second chamber, and looked barely large enough for me to slither into. I made it through the opening and into this second room, left a coin in the back as a present for the next person who dared venture inside, then posed for a couple pictures like a whack-a-mole before coming out.

In addition to being a successful exploration, Moose Mountain was a great example of one of our favorite types of adventures - it was a day spent out in nature, it was time spent doing things with friends, and it was a place that had just enough surprises to send us home that night with a couple of new stories to tell.