Caving: It's Like Fun, Only Different
Posted Tue, 2010-03-09 19:58 by Emily Caryl
When I was college, I majored in Math and minored in English. Math was always my worst subject, and English was always my best subject. I figured I could make 'C's in my math classes, 'A's in my English classes, and graduate with a 'B' average. As it turns out, that's exactly what happened.
Following are excerpts from a paper I wrote for my English 312 class on November 11, 1996. If I remember correctly, the assignment was to interview a person and write a paper about it. I interviewed my two caving buddies, Mike Elble and Pam Wright.
If you're so inclined, you can also read the entire article. It's kinda long. But all you TAG cavers out there might see a few people or places you recognize.
Cavers are a carefree, optimistic bunch obsessed with exploring underground caverns. Cavers come from all walks of life. During the week they are lawyers, surgeons, painters, carpenters, and rocket scientists. On the weekends, however, this eclectic group comes together as a family to explore dark subterranean passages. Mike Elble and Pam Wright are no exception.
Mike, an experienced caver of eight years, is a 35 year old, rough, scraggly looking fellow. His brown hair is disheveled and uncombed. Pam is a small, thin girl with long, frizzy hair. [She] is relatively new to the caving scene. Together, Mike and Pam and have been on close to 500 different cave trips.
Deaton's Cave was Mike's first natural cave trip. It was "low, wet, nasty crawling. There were a couple of little rooms in the back. There was lots of trash and spray paint, but it was cool." The entrance room had been a night club during prohibition, and cavers can still see remnants of a three tiered bandstand poured out of cement. After that trip, Mike ponders, "I was hooked."
Pam's first brush with caving was a drop into a 110 foot pit at Honeycutt. There were two ropes rigged, so she had someone going down beside her to guide her along. There was also a second person belaying Pam, handling the rope at the bottom of the pit to prevent or minimize the effects of an accident. "I took my first few steps over the lip, lost my footing, and slammed into the wall. I did this a few times and ended up just hanging around rather ungracefully. That's when I changed my mind and decided to go back [to the top of the pit]."
Pam's friends calmed her down. She regained her courage and managed to rappel to the bottom, where a huge waterfall stood rushing behind her. "Wow," Pam thought, "I hope I can get back out." After this less-than-pleasant experience, one would think that Pam would quit rappelling and caving. However, Pam says, "At that point I still didn't know any better."
Apparently, after his first trip, Mike did not know any better either. Shortly after his trip to Deaton's, Mike obtained the phone number of an experienced caver, Art Dollar [sic - Sorry, Art!]. "I called out of the blue and introduced myself. I said I had been caving a few times, and I wanted to do it again." Mike had no way of knowing that, two weeks prior to his phone call, Art had been involved in a harrowing cave accident and rescue.
Mike recalls, "I was thrown into that group of people two weeks after that incident. It was kind of a weird scene. I think they were more careful than they would have been otherwise. Art told me later that he probably would have quit caving if it hadn't have been for my phone call."
Mike explains that cavers won't let each other quit. "The kind of friendships that you make caving are the most important part of the experience. People won't let you put it down and walk away from it when you want to. It's more like a family. You don't just quit. Challenges that used to freak me out about how hard the world is seem silly now." Although caving sometimes seems terrifying, Mike maintains that, "The scariest thing I've ever seen in a cave is gravity."
After dangling above dark pits, and risking life and limb, it is a mystery why anyone would want to continue this self-torture. Pam laughs, "It's like fun, only different. Anyway," she continues, "it's a lot better than stamp collecting." Like most cavers, Mike and Pam like caving because they get the opportunity to explore places few people have been before. Mike says, "It's like one of those sports that everybody can do, but not many people care to."
Pam and Mike could talk for hours about the beauty and excitement of caving. The only thing they are quiet about is the location of their dark caverns. "There are already enough cavers," Mike explains, "we don't need anymore." Indeed, there are many caves that have been trashed by humans. Camp fires, beer cans, and spray paint litter many caves. In addition, "Some people like to take formations home to mama," Mike laments. "Even when we go caving, we inevitably damage the cave," he explains. "Like yesterday, someone accidentally broke off a small popcorn formation." Pam continues, "The less traveled a cave is, the more its beauty is preserved."
When Pam and Mike tell their stories about caving, their eyes twinkle and their faces light up. It is obvious that they share something very special. While climbing through darkened Swiss cheese, they have learned more than how to rappel a deep pit or find the right passageway. They have conquered fear and frustration, and found a special family of friends to share the seldom-seen wonders of the inside of the earth.
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