I’ll admit it, I was quite upset that I couldn’t attend Ice Fest this year due to my move to Virginia (read: spent way too much time sulking about it). To add to the sting of being in a new university with new people in a new middle of nowhere, I now couldn’t feasibly attend what I hoped had become an annual thing. And not just any annual thing– an annual thing that gives me an absurdly huge boost of self-confidence and lets me escape from the stress of being a grad student. I ended up contacting folk from the group I’ve gone with before about missing this year, so hopefully next year I can coordinate with them to go again. But in the meantime, no extreme, adrenaline-pumping sport for me… or so I thought!
In a funny turn of events, I saw a poster hanging for an outdoor rec group associated with Virginia Tech. It listed their events for the semester, things like a spring break backpacking trip and paddle boarding dates. It also had listed a few dates with caving outings. I decided to look into it and register for one of them. I mean, why not? I love going on cave tours (Carlsbad Caverns, St. Michael’s Cave, Mammoth Cave, Cumberland Caverns, etc.), but always thought caving was too dangerous to try. Seeing that it was guided, all supplies provided, and beginner-friendly, I figured at worst it’d be dorky and I’d just get to walk around a local cave for the day. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a lot more involved!
We started the outing by packing up our gear and busing to the cave location. The cave entrance was on private property, so we were only able to go since the organization had permission from the owners. It turns out that with cave law, the caves are owned federally, but whoever owns the land with the entrance legally can restrict access if they’d like. We had to hike through cow pastures and woods to get there, and to my surprise, the entrance did NOT look how I had expected. I guess I was expecting, well, a cave? Like a rocky opening in the side of a hill or mountain that I could walk into? Instead, we entered through a man-made entrance. It was a small, concrete tube housed inside a black plastic fence. There were no steps or ladder, so you just had to shimmy down (and back up when leaving, which was actually pretty difficult).
When you get to the bottom of the concrete tube, you have to lay down and scoot forward through a portion of the cave roughly the same size as the entrance. Thankfully, once you get past that, the cave opens up to a much bigger room that can easily be stood in.
We moved forward through the cave, crawling and climbing when needed. At one point, the guide set up a rope for us to hold onto in order to safely descend an area. I’m not sure what is the norm for caving, but overall there were a number of areas that we could stand and walk through.
At one point we were crawling through a pretty narrow section, and there ended up being a cluster of bats in our way. We had to turn back, as not to disturb the bats, but since the tunnel was so narrow, we had to crawl backwards, silently while dragging our packs along. It was actually pretty tough physically to do, but we all made it back out.
Thankfully, our trip was not cut short as our guide had another section of cave to show us. He took us to an area called Queen’s Bath, where there was a pool of crystal clear water. You could see on the rock around the bottom how the varying water levels over time affected its formation. Nearby, we also went to the Art Room, which was a tiny cove/pocket you could climb up to that was filled with natural clay. There were a handful of little clay sculptures previous cavers had left, and I made a little mushroom to join the party.
I think something these first pictures don’t show is just how dark the cave is. Without the flash of the camera, you only have a tiny area of light from the headlamp. You have no idea what’s around you if you aren’t shining your light on it, including critters like bats and bugs, the type of rocks/mud/clay/water, and where you’re stepping. There are a lot of places where there are just holes or pits you could fall into if you’re not careful. Below is a photo I took when we were eating lunch. I think this photo, although not as adventurous, shows more closely what the experience is like.
As I do when I write at an ungodly hour of the morning, I found a bit of meaning in the darkness/headlight situation. In this vast cave filled with lots to find and explore, some good and some bad, we choose where to shine our lights and look. I think since moving, my headlight has been pointed towards a lot of the bad and uncertain parts. I still feel pretty bad about my decision to come to Virginia and pursue/continue my PhD, and I have seriously considered quitting my program a handful of times since arriving. But really, I committed to this goal and if I start looking for the cool, interesting, peaceful, and lovely, it’ll show itself to me. Maybe I’ll have to look at a lot of the same boring rocks before I find it, but it’s there. Even just being closer to Alex has been incredible (despite feeling like a terrible partner for essentially putting our lives on pause for the next 3-4 years), and I know that I’ll dive headfirst when I can put my focus on my research again (boo, I’m still not cleared for lab work yet and teaching/classes are consuming my time). It’ll all be fine, and I just need to avoid dwelling on the bad if I’m gonna make it through this cave.
Hopefully you enjoyed hearing about this little adventure. I plan to do some more of these trips in the future, and seeing how wonderful of a time this was, maybe this is my wake up call to take a look if there are any pottery/glassblowing/music/literally anything groups in the area to get involved with. As you can see, I lost my second wind just about now and need to go to bed desperately. Post ends here haha.
Happy reading,
-Beppa
P.S. Does this make me a trogloxene?