radiopeter

Despite the immense Saturday night dinner we had at Rosie’s BBQ All-you-can-eat buffet (used to be called Hickory Villa, be sure to visit, it’s near the Super 8 in Cave City) after Grand Avenue, when we returned to the Super 8, I had trouble sleeping. I was just on the edge of diving back down into the earth for the Wild Cave tour, barely twelve hours away. I checked and re-checked my gear, praying my tour group would be on the thinner side and in good health. I was scared and excited, unable to stop replaying my Carlsbad adventures in my head. Would it be the same? Would I make it through? Could I push beyond my limits yet again? What, if anything, will we find down there…

My alarm rang at 7am and I snapped awake. Gino was still slumbering by the time I’d changed, washed up, and readied myself for the tour. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a ticket to Wild Cave, but he was planning to head there early with me to try and get on the waiting list. Well, there was no such luck and he didn’t get to join me. Instead, with three rangers, Kevin, Janet, and Joel (the guide from our Grand Avenue Tour), and 13 other guests, we headed behind the visitors center to talk helmets, lights, safety, and just how dangerous a cave can be.

I’m going to pause my story here and lecture a bit. Stick with me. It’s worth it.

All of us get into regular routines. We go to work/school, we socialize with our friends, we do the kinds of things in our city/town/area that we enjoy. Finding a place where you are content in life, physically and emotionally, is pretty much at the top of our agendas. The trouble is that routine life rarely teaches you much about yourself. Sure, you can meet the occasional new person, or encounter a book, or read a magazine, or view a television program that expands your mind. But I believe you need to get out of your usual physical location to learn more about yourself. Routines are routines because you don’t have to think much about them.

It takes courage to break out of routines. New things scare a lot of people. New people, new places, new social customs, and new foods are all at once intimidating and frightening. But what lives beyond intimidation? Knowledge. What’s on the other side of fear? Same thing, knowledge.

How can you ever enrich your routines unless you learn more?

Ahh, but Peter, you’re asking, why on earth do I want to enrich my life? Why learn more? Why try different things? Why change? In short, to be gently metaphoric, because the still pool stagnates quickly.

Remember the still, stagnant pool as I continue my cave story.

Caving isn’t something most people can just outright do. Body size and shape matter. Your general fitness level matters. But neither of these things compare to the immense mental strength it takes to squeeze yourself from one dark chamber, through a dark tunnel a bit smaller than a 19″ monitor (that’s a hole about 15″x11″), into another dark chamber. Our first major test in the cave, the squeeze that would weed out the men and women from the boys and girls, was called Bare Hole. Getting through goes something like this.

There is the hole. No, not that giant gaping thing in the wall. That dark oval down there at ground level. The one that’s eating your headlight. Nope, you can’t see the other side from here. It’s not a direct shot. Just get down, and get in there.

You have to tilt your head and body to the side as you enter. Reach one of your arms in front of you, and keep the other pressed firmly into your side. Just as your shoulders begin to pass through the beginning, relax, exhale, and slither a few inches in. Your head and shoulders are now completely in the hole. Slither some more and work your body further through. Now you’re in up to your knees. Your hands are useless, and you are relying on your toes and a kind of sidewinder motion to push you through.

Stop, take a shallow breath, and exhale.

You push your body further through the tunnel. It’s getting smaller and you can only breathe in short gasps. Keep them slow, in and out. Slowly draw in the air, slowly push it out. Slither forward some more. Thank God you have boots with great traction. The wall is inches in front of your face, so close you can’t even see your headlight because it’s blocked. You can feel the cool stone stealing the heat from your skin. Now you are completely surrounded by rock, wedged into a tube barely the size of a human. Slither forward even more. You stretched your ankles right? They are the only thing that you can move.

Suddenly, your head pops out into a chamber so big you can’t see into the blackness at the either end. Two rangers are there, their lights shining on the ground in front of the hole that is slowly giving birth to you. They are coaching you on how well you are doing and what to do next. You desperately want to take a deep breath and fill your lungs, but the oppressively cold rock surrounding you is keeping the size of your chest clamped to it’s minimum. You wiggle your feet some more, exhale completely, and pitch your hips so they can glide through the hole.

Finally, your extended arm creeps forward and you find a hold. You pull yourself a bit, but that’s not going to work until your shoulders are clear of the hole. Wiggle, slither, exhale. You inch forward. Your second shoulder and are are finally free. Your other hand finds hold. You breathe all the way out, and slide forward. You’re free. You’re out of the squeeze. But you’re not done.

There is someone behind you and it’s your job to take care of them. To coach them. To offer them a hand, NOT to pull them, but to become an extra hold if they need it. Are they pushing a pack in front of them? Grab it and get it out of their way. How are they doing? Talk to them. You should know their name. You should always know the names of the people in front and behind you. Always. Help guide them. You’ve just been through the same pinch, what worked for you. Offer advice. When they are free, take a seat. Thirteen more people have to get through.

Everyone on my tour got through. And that was how the Wild Cave tour began, a far cry from any sort of still pool.

Kevin would be our lead on the Wild Cave tour. Janet followed behind him, and third in line, for almost all six hours, was either myself or a guy named Tony I’d met along the way. Seventeen souls heading off the path into the depths of Mammoth. Where would we go? Kevin’s choice, based on how we were performing. What would we see? Some of the most magical places and things Mother Earth has ever created.

You remember how one of your teachers described some sort of geologic process that took “thousands of years” to create? Well, unless you get down into a cave, I don’t think you can ever fully appreciate statements like that. We experienced parts of Mammoth that contained gaping chasms, huge domed ceilings, and layer upon layer of winding passageways obviously cut from the rock by running water. Crawling around inside those passages you can feel time both stand still and rush by as your eyes dance over layer upon layer of rock walls.

I couldn’t tell you what route we took because I’m not skilled enough to remember six hours worth of new cave experience. My body had only ever done most of the things we did twice before, and even then it was a completely different cave, so the climbing, descending, spidering (walking sideways on hands and feet), crawls, holds, and techniques were slightly different but just as difficult

It’s obvious off-trail in Mammoth how huge the system is. From crawling through passages that were barely wide enough for us (see above), to casual walks in gigantic canyons, the diversity of intensely distinct passages signaled this was, indeed, a special place. As I mentioned earlier, there aren’t many of the oh-that-is-a-cave decorations, but the omnipresent gypsum seeping out from the limestone fashions itself into some pretty spectacular features. Glittering ceilings, sparkling crevices, and at times, walls coated in shimmering gypsum flowers reminded me that for every long stalactite that wasn’t in Mammoth, there were a hundred glistening formations of infinitely more beauty.

It’s the subtle way Mammoth shows her beautiful side that’s most impressive.

At every stretch of the tour Kevin would first explain what we were about to see or do in detail. He’d talk about the history of the places we were and who was here first. He’d point out notable signatures on the walls, and give us some insight into the people who led the tours over time. We saw lots of dates from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, which kept blowing my mind. Here I was in modern boots, with modern clothing, gloves, helmets and lighting. How did someone in the late 1800’s trek to where we were. Amazing.

As the tour progressed, Janet and I began to chat more. Would you believe she is about to celebrate her seventy-third birthday? She is a PhD, a concert pianist who tours around the world, and she’s had the chance to give a concert in the cave back in October. If only I knew, I’d have attended.

But seventy-three? Certainly no stagnant pool there. She is whip smart, limber, and has a sense of humor so hysterical, I nearly hurt myself while laughing and not paying attention to the path we were on. Mother Mammoth has a way of reminding you who is in charge around every corner.

Janet has worked at the cave for many years and is both an excellent caver and a knowledgeable historian. I asked her what it was like for her the first time she visited Mammoth, somewhere around age 50. She paused for just a moment, slightly tilted her head to the side, then looked me right in the eyes and said “All I could think about was how soon I could get back down into the cave.” I know exactly how she feels.

I can’t say there was any part of the cave that was more spectacular than another, but at some point along our tour, after Kevin explained the sections that we were going to head through in detail, he invited me to lead the tour.

Uh. ‘Scuse me? I was going to lead sixteen other people into the darkness?

It wasn’t as frightening as it sounds, but the biggest rush for the lead is looking forward into the nothingness and deciding where to go. We were on very well traveled paths, so by studying the ground I could see which fork in the road was more traveled. But for a good half-hour, I was the person pacing the group, deciding which path to take, and looking forward into the inky darkness. I am eternally grateful to Kevin for offering me that opportunity, and I honestly cannot wait to get back to Mammoth to take the tour again.

Why take the tour a second time? Well, for one, it’s never the same. Different rangers lead the tour to different places. With over 360 miles of cave, you could visit the cave a hundred times and not see it all. In fact, there is a guest who has logged over a hundred trips in Mammoth and still hasn’t seen it all. Janet told me about him and suggested that for anyone who can physically (and mentally) do it, Wild Cave is one of the better repeat-trips the National Park Service offers because it always changes.

As we made our way through tunnels, canyons, and incredible domed rooms, we occasionally passed pools of water here and there. Some were crystal clear and moving, while others were still with glass-like surfaces. From time to time we had to straddle water-filled passages by walking on natural footholds on either side of the water. The golden rule for water in Mammoth is that you should avoid stepping in running water. That water is headed elsewhere and has a job to do, so don’t contaminate it. Still water just sits there, stagnating.

The metaphor in that struck me as magically profound, going against a lot of what I believed up until that point. I’d always thought a still pool, glass-like and calm, should never be disturbed. You wouldn’t want to wreck the pristine nature of it. But it isn’t true. It’s just sitting there, festering. The running water, the water on it’s way to do something, is most precious.

Right there, down deep in the earth, dusty, muddy, sweaty, and bordering on exhaustion, I had yet another mind shattering moment of clarity.

From now on, I will do my best to be like that running water. It had the power to build Mammoth cave. It has been traveling for years. It picked up things and moved them from one place to another. It cut through solid rock. It left indelible impressions.

It made a difference.

I was sad to leave Mammoth, just as I was sad to leave Carlsbad. Not because I was returning to my routines, but because I know, somewhere down deep in the earth, there’s more I can learn about myself. I’ve tried my best to describe how deeply those places have left their mark on me, but words only scratch the surface (pun completely intended).

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 9:55 pm and is filed under blogpost. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.