[Paradoxodarap]

Originally Posted by davis53

As a big fan of the movie Breaking Away, I would like to say thanks for the information, photos. Living in California I would like to make the trip to Bloomington to take a look at the quarries someday.

And when you get there you'll be amazed how much more beautiful the quarries appear in real life than in photographs. None of my photos do justice to the scope of the holes, their towering cliffs, massive slag piles and deep aquamarine waters. In Icebox for example, the water was so clear you could see 40 feet down all the way to the bottom.

Originally Posted by mikex2

Great photos. Great to see some many REAL women with hair! Quarry looks like a wonderful and peaceful place.

Packinghouse was a wonderful and peaceful place. And it was more than just a place to swim and hang out; among those who attended on a regular basis there existed a genuine sense of community.

Originally Posted by themutt

send me the set! LOVE THE BUSHES

Stayed tuned and you'll get the entire set.

Originally Posted by wabba1968

This thread is just about the best thing on the web right now. Loving it.
Why oh why did women start shaving off their lovely bushes??

Sounds like many of you are in my camp: bush lovers. Why did women start shaving their lovely bushes? In my opinion the single biggest factor is the internet. The dawn of the digital age enabled millions of women to snap naked photos of themselves and post them online. (God bless 'em!) Some of those women who now had a forum to safely indulge their exhibitionist tendencies sought to enhance their exposure by removing hair. Once bald vulvas began appearing online, a groundswell of copycat shaving ensued. I have no scientific data to support this conjecture; it's just an intuitive feeling.
For you bush lovers, take heart; societal shifts are cyclical and someday the pendulum will swing back in a hairy direction. At least I hope so.

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These two women, like all quarry women, didn't shave. They shamelessly showed their lovely bushes on a rock in the far southeastern corner of Sundown Quarry. This area, in the vicinity of pedestal rock, was favored by women who sought a measure of separation from the crowd but still wanted to be part of the scene and exhibit their bodies. In this regard, they were much like contemporary women who post photos of themselves online from the safety of home.

This rock is in the same area as posts 16, 19, 21 and the last two pics in 25. Even though this area was physically isolated from other popular sunbathing rocks, it was within easy reach of my telephoto lens from the clifftop trails. But even without optics I could easily move within optimal naked eye viewing range. And the method I used was far less conspicuous than Catman's overland prowling. Floating on my air mattress, I would drift, lazily, in the direction of pedestal rock. I made my approach slowly, so as not to spook women into covering up. I kept my distance, no closer than 30 feet, and never did I receive the kind of excoriation Catman routinely endured. And only once did a woman cover up while I floated lazily on my raft into her space. But it was too late; I had already entered her naked body into my mental catalog.

On those weekends I camped at Rosebud Quarry, sometimes in the early morning I tossed my raft into Long hole, climbed aboard and drifted away on a summer daydream. The quarry was ¼ mile long and only 50 feet wide. Down in the pit between the steep slag piles on one side and a 50 foot tall cliff on the other, it was easy to imagine I was running a river through some southwestern desert canyon, maybe on the mighty Colorado itself where it slices through the Kaibab plateau. Due to scant few suitable rocks for sunbathing, Long hole was seldom used for swimming; voyeur opportunities were scarce but I didn't care; by midday, the rocks at Sundown would be occupied by naked college girls awaiting my perusal.

Early one July Sunday morning while lazily floating near the north end of Long hole, I heard voices echoing down the canyon. Male and female voices. The voices were coming from the far end a quarter-mile away and out of sight behind a slag pile. Three splashes were heard followed by rhythmic sloshing. At the far end, three swimmers came into view, using the crawl stroke and moving steadily in my direction. I began paddling my raft toward them. The swimmers were moving much faster than I and before long they passed by, one woman and two men, all wearing swimming goggles and white latex swim caps emblazoned with red IU logos. That was all they were wearing. When they reached the north wall, they executed kick turns and headed back south. These IU swim team members were on a voluntary Sunday morning workout. When they passed again, I was able to plainly see the woman's pale buttocks in the crystal clear water. I continued slowly paddling my raft south as the trio swam lap after lap. When they had completed two trips to the north wall and back they took a breather. Seated on a submerged rock they talked quietly among themselves for a few minutes then headed north again. By the time they finished another two laps I was floating in the vicinity of where they had left their clothing. The trio stayed in the water for a few minutes then climbed out onto their rock. All were serious athletes; lean, muscled, strong shoulders and defined buttocks.

I've never cared for female bodybuilders. If pumping up is their 'thing' then fine, but I don't enjoy looking at them clothed or naked. But this female swimmer wasn't training to gain bulk; her athletic body was a testimonial to countless hours in the pool (and quarry) striving to be her best at her chosen sport. The three of them removed their swim caps and goggles then stood on the rock toweling dry. The woman wasn't concerned about my presence nearby and did nothing to minimize her nakedness; facing me full-frontal she toweled dry her short sandy hair, torso and smallish breasts as if in the privacy of the womens' locker room.
They didn't hang around to sunbathe; after drying they got dressed in underwear, gym shorts, T-shirts and athletic shoes then clambered up the steep slag pile and departed. How wonderful for those college teammates to share a nude workout and then carry that camaraderie back to campus.

Do you suppose a bare body slices through the water faster than one wearing a suit? Even a suit made for racing? In a sport where fractions of a second make the difference between gold and silver, swimmers do anything legal to gain an advantage. What if sanctioning bodies like the NCAA and the IOC allowed swimmers the option to compete nude? In striving to attain the Olympic ideal, why not compete like the ancient Olympians? As a bonus, it would be a major boost for TV ratings.

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The last photo is an overview of the Packinghouse property, from north to south 3/4 mile and east to west, 1/2 mile.

The red X marks quarries on property owned by someone else other than the elderly gent. Packinghouse skinny-dippers sometimes encroached on these holes but were regularly chased away by security patrols.

A) Goldfish Quarry.

B) Triple complex: Full moon, Half moon, Sundown.

C) Long hole, truncated by highway built in 2002. Here, in the triple complex and on Mill pond, the thin red lines show the former shorelines 'back in the day.'

D) Mill pond.

E) Buried Rosebud Quarry. Rest in peace.

F) Icebox Quarry. After skinny-dippers were booted out, Icebox was drained and stone extraction resumed. Thirty years of quarrying has resulted in an Icebox much, much different, and larger, than back in the 70s. In this Google Earth image, I don't even recognize it.

G) Former parking area.

H) The old mill.