Jan Term Blog #1
Lol this is from a year ago that I forgot to post
Conquering The Caverns (Jan 2017)
Spelunk [spi-luhngk] — the act of exploring caves or caverns.
This word was foreign to me. Spelunk. I have never used, said, read or even heard of this word in my life. When I heard this, I knew was it sounded ridiculous — BUT it did have a ring to it in a way and it made me genuinely curious. I come to find out that the term refers to the exploration of caves or caverns particularly as a hobby. I briefly thought about the idea of crawling through underground limestone caverns and instantaneously started to envision how my spelunking adventure would go. Either I would get eaten alive by voracious, rabid, bug-infested bats (Are there even bats underground?); a boulder would surely come loose and crush my body to a bloody pulp; or I might actually make it alive through the roughly 3.5 hour ‘adventure tour’ crawling on my hands and knees through mud, dirt and jagged rocks with openings smaller than a hula-hoop all while being 200 feet below the earth with no way back, no food or water source, no bathrooms and no wifi. Oh did I mention it was 80% humidity underground? How fitting, I thought. Spelunking doesn’t just sound crazy — it is crazy. I thought there’s no way I’d be willing or even capable of doing this. I know little to nothing about caves and caverns, I’m a bit out of shape and the thought of being underground in cramped spaces for long periods of time was not the most appealing idea. But, the prideful and adventurous person inside me was not going to back down from a challenge. (Did I just screw myself over? We’ll see…)
Rappelling down the first 100 feet below the ground was the first challenge. With absolutely no experience rappelling, I was a little nervous. After being instructed on the proper techniques, I was strapped into my harness and ready to descend into a dark hole of who knows what. With cautious hesitancy, I took my first couple steps down. My heart was beating faster and faster and my hands became sweaty as I carefully let the weight of my body hang from a single rope. To my surprise, after a couple feet of steady shuffling down the rock wall, the rest was cake. By the way, the view of the inside of the cave from my angle was stunning. The way the light hit the rock formations just perfectly highlighted the striations and details of every structure. After passing the last bit of the rock wall, I lowered myself down while my feet hung loosely, no longer able to ‘walk’ down the wall. I hung on the rope like a spider on a single web strand. I made a quick descent to the bottom where I was pulled in by another guide to be de-harnessed. Mission accomplished.
My next challenge crept up on me. After another round of brief instruction, we began our adventure with nothing but a hard hat, a headlamp and a feeling of uncertainty. All angst aside, I went for it and followed the caravan of yellow hardhats.
We made it through the first segment of squeezing through some fairly tight crevices and it wasn’t all that bad. A little dirt never hurt right? My guide then informs me that we’ll continue on our tour and we’ll be passing through some segments of the cavern named “The Pancake Squeeze,” “The Meat Shredder,” and “The Birth Canal.” I didn’t want to think too much about these names so I decided to swallow the lump in my throat and trek along.
We reached the pancake squeeze where I found myself laying upside down on my back literally squeezing through two slabs of rock. I had just enough room to shimmy myself through without scraping my nose off my face. I was able to reach a space big enough for my arms to swing up and grab a handle-like rock where I could pull my body out. If i had eaten just one more donut from 7–11 earlier in the morning, I don’t think I’d be here today to finish this blog. Well, mission accomplished…just barely.
Next came “The Meat Shredder.” Again, I tried not to think about it too much and how they so cleverly invented this name. I came face to face with a large rock hanging down from the ceiling of a very narrow upward tunnel. I crawled under it ever so carefully just to run into another large rock that came up from the ground. Essentially, I had to shape-shift into a snake and somehow slither my body under and over two consecutive slabs of rigid rock. After carefully maneuvering through, I finally made it through with my body surprisingly still intact and not shredded despite what the name suggests. I guess that one time I did yoga 6 years ago really paid off! Mission accomplished.
Lastly, “The Birth Canal.” Based on the name, I figured this would be the tightest of the tunnels that I’d have to crawl through but I really did not expect it to be as tight as it was. I looked up the 45 degree angle shaft and saw my guides face poking through what seemed to be an opening 6 inches in diameter from my angle. He yelled down the shaft and explained how to position my body. Essentially, I had to choose one position and stick to that the entire way through because once you’re in there, you’re really in there. There’s no room to reposition your body or switch arms if one gets too fatigued while leading or even bend slightly to scratch your knee. I had to rely solely on my feet to blindly find whatever nook I could plant the tip of my foot on to give me a slight push up while my left hand grasped the wall and my right hand pulled up on a rope. To prevent my body from slipping down, I flared out my shoulders and knees to keep myself lodged in the canal and to allow myself to catch my breath. Inch by inch, I made progress to the top where I started to see a light and was greeted by the familiar site of a spiral staircase, some fresh-ish air and an overwhelming feeling of relief. Mission accomplished.
I never felt so relieved and gratified. Although exhausted, I was able to stand tall at the end of it and think about how much pain and discomfort I went through while going through the 3.5 hour long tour. It goes to show that no matter how difficult, exhausting or seemingly impossible a task is, you have to keep your head up high — or in this case, keep your head low — and you’ll be able to overcome and persevere through anything.
