Caving

This past Friday I did one of the most exciting things I've done in a very long, perhaps ever. Thursday, my friend John flew down from Illinois where he lives and on Friday took me caving (also called spelunking) in Cave of the Bells in New Mexico. This was not the kind of caving where you walk down the paved road while a tour guide points out stalactites and they send out a golf cart to pick you up if you feel a little winded from the walking. This was full-blown serious caving where you are traveling as much vertically as horizontally in the pitch black and squeeze through tiny little openings that induce intense claustrophobia.

In short, there were about three times where I was sure I was going to die down there.

Despite my periodic certainty of death, there were also times of exhilaration and I took a bunch of pictures. Many didn't come out very well because of the darkness, but I think the best ones will give you the idea.

We started out very clean and took pictures of each other, looking intrepid. Here's John:

John Being Intrepid

Also before our journey into terror, here's me, blissfully ignorant adventurer decked out in my loaned gear:

Aaron Before Caving

John told me he really prefers caves that have a large drop at the entrance, ones that require ropes and such, because the barrier to entry is higher and it keeps the less serious cavers away. This one had no such drop, just a roughly six or seven foot climb down. This is where I had my first bit of trepidation. I'm not what you'd call thin and agile (no, no, really!) and I did kind of wonder how I'd get back out. But I stepped down the hole, bracing myself on the sides and took one last photo of the sunny sky:

Looking Out From the Entrance

Once in the hole, though, there is a gate that allows the park rangers to restrict access to only those that they know will be there. First thing in the morning, we had driven to Tuscon and retrieved what turned out to be the last available key, as other cavers had been pretty negligent about returning the others. John unlocked the gate so we could get in:

John Unlocks the Entrance Gate

Once past the gate, John relocked the gate behind us and we put the key and my no longer necessary sunglasses about ten feet into the cave. This was probably the only thing that made John nervous, knowing that the only key known to the rangers was now locked into the cave itself, out of reach.

That gate was not the original gate. The original was across a tiny opening that required the first constricted crawl. The gate part was gone, but the opening is still there and a first step. I guess you could consider this a good "weed-out" crawl. If you can't bring yourself to go through this, then you won't get to the more difficult constrictions later. After crawling through, I turned around and took a picture of that opening:

The Tiny Way In

Later, John told me the story of his first passage through a small, constricted space and the panic that he felt at the time. After that, we had this rather entertaining exchange:

Aaron: So, you understand how scary this part is for me, but you've gotten over it
after what, fifteen years of caving?
John: Not fifteen years, I've only been doing this since 1991.
Aaron: Um, that's fifteen years.
John: Son of a bitch!

Inside the cave, it was much warmer than outside. We signed the register that's in there in a white tube with reflective tape on it, and I shed my extra long-sleeved shirt. I guess it's not uncommon for cavers to slowly shed extra equipment as they go deeper. When we got back to my shirt later, I found out I must smell nice to cave crickets, as there were hordes of them on the shirt that I had to shake off.

As we delved into the real reaches of the cave, there were opportunities to see a lot of rock formations unique to the cave environment. For example, here's a shot John took of me next to a large section of flowstone. Don't be fooled by my happy expression - that was simply because this was fairly late in the expedition when I was finally confident I could get out. Also it had been at least ten minutes since one of John's less than helpful comments, such as, "It's best if you try not to think about the millions of tons of rock, pressing down at you, that will inevitably be drawn down by gravity to crush what little space is left."

Me and My Flowstone

We probably descended about 150 feet below ground. The cave is estimated to be about 240 feet deep if you descend to the pool at its base. If I'd been able to go everywhere John could go, we probably could have made it, but we reached a spot where I couldn't continue, although not for lack of trying. Here's a picture of the gap that finally defeated me:

I Couldn't Fit Through Here

You can see John on the other side. He was doing his best to encourage me, but there are some places you just can't fit. I slid my feet into this gap and got about halfway through. I had already taken off my pack. As I look at it, the picture is kind of deceptive and it looks like it should be plenty of room, but it's not. My back was on the rock at the bottom of the picture and my belly was getting caught on the projecting rock in the middle of the rock at the top. My legs were through, largely dangling in midair. The angle of the photo is also a bit deceptive, since there's nothing to really use as a horizon line. The picture was taken at a roughly 45 degree angle downward, so this opening is as much a drop as it is a hole going forward. John was eight to ten feet below me.

The problem was that it was going to be very hard to get through, although perhaps I could have made it, but I didn't feel at all confident I would be able to get back out. We hadn't done any upward climb yet, but it just seemed that if it was this hard getting in, getting out without purchase for my feet would be impossible. As it was, I had to lift myself back out of this gap pretty much just using my arms.

The return climb took twice the climb down and there were several times I had to stop and rest for several minutes because my arms and legs were shaking badly with the effort. It was also very intense because some of the dark holes that didn't look so bad on the way down I now knew were openings to fifty-plus foot shafts falling to some unknown bottom. When you are slowly pulling yourself up a rather slick piece of slanted rock and hunting for handfolds and footholds, that gives you incentive to be sure of what you grab, but doesn't make it any easier.

One shaft upward had me very worried in that John went up it first, pushing his pack in front of him, but ended up grunting and cursing most of the way up while I watched him getting his hips wedged between floor and ceiling. After he was through, I took off my pack and my camera dropped off it's strap, although still in its case. All you could hear was, "Thump! Thump! Thump!" as it bounced down into the darkness.

Aaron: Well, that didn't sound good.
John: No, it didn't. What was it?
Aaron: My camera. Too bad, I was liking the pictures I was getting.
John: You can't leave it behind without looking for it.
Aaron: Sure I can. It was hell getting this far back up and I don't really want to do it again. I loved that camera, but it's gone now.
John: It's not the camera, it's the memories.
Aaron: To hell with the memories. I'm not going back down.
John: Fine, look out. I'm coming back down.

Miraculously, he found it and it was unharmed, despite bouncing to some thirty feet below us. Once he came back up and I secured it in a pocket in my pack, John continued back up, but a different way this time. That way, though, was the crazy way, as it went along a ledge over one of those unfathomably deep pits.

I went up the original shaft he'd taken the first time. Since I'd seen how John didn't fit on his side, I went up on my belly. I learned I could brace myself with my feet, reach with my arms, pull myself up, then brace myself by pushing my back against the ceiling. That would free me up to find new footholds. I could even create a foothold by putting my heel on the ceiling and pushing my knee (with kneepad, very important!) against the floor of the shaft. That would wedge my lower leg so it could slip and I could push against it to lift myself further. As it turns out, this was a pretty good way to climb that part and restored some of my earlier confidence.

Eventually, we made it out. (No, Aaron, we thought you had been killed....) I had a great time, but John got a picture of the now filthy me describing how dark and "scawy" it was:

Aaron After Caving - It was Dark and Scawy!

We changed clothes, and drove away from my latest adventure, well satisfied with the experience. I have to say, though, that having lunch where we did gave a view that left me with far more appreciation that I would have had before caving:

Lunch was Blissfully Outside 

I don't know if I'll ever go caving again, but I'm glad I did it at least once.