Wild Caves: Nature’s Sensory Deprivation Chambers

There’s something special about being in complete darkness.  You’d expect it to feel claustrophobic, full of tension and anxiety, after all humans have feared the dark as long as we’ve been around.  Oddly enough being in complete darkness is astonishingly peaceful.  When you’re deep underground in tight cramped conditions and you’re trying to avoid thinking about the uncountable tons of rock precariously suspended above your head your heart pumps pretty fast.  Turn off the lights and just sit in total darkness and silence and instead of feeling trapped and enclosed you feel like you’re in a void more expansive than space and overwhelming you instead you just feel peace.

Caving is a unique experience, it challenges the mind in amazing ways from route finding, 3 dimensional navigation and overcoming fears, while working the body in a kind of excessive that it usually doesn’t see.  There are typically two kinds of caves, Show Caves and Wild Caves.  Show caves are actively managed by a national park, private company, campground, or someone.  They often have lights strung up in them and many times have had paths cleared through them that remove the need to do any climbing.

If you’re looking for more adventure wild caves are where it’s at.  Wild caves are natural caves that have little if any human additions  made to them.  They carry a certain amount of inherit danger and should be explored by those who know they are not claustrophobic and have some level of rock climbing experience.

This is where caving really comes into it’s own.  Most states have dozens of wild caves in across them and nearly all of them have some kind of caving orginization built to protect, and map the caves.  The NSS (National Speleological Society) has a site listing all 12,000 members of it’s caving clubs (grottos) you can find the registered clubs closest to you here, contacting them and asking them for a good beginner wild cave is a great way to check out wild caving.  Another good way is to join them on one of their caving trips.  Most clubs put together a few trips a year.

Taking photos in a wild cave can be a bit tricky, often your headlamp will not provide enough light to get an autofocus lock on a subject, but firing the flash a few times can work.  This will drain the batteries pretty fast though.  Your best bet is to setup the camera on a rock or bring a small tripod.  Using a long exposure you can use people’s headlamps to “paint” the walls with light bringing out the features of a cave.  You can also use this to show headlamp paths within a cave.  Try for a 30 - 10 second exposure with a low ISO of 100 or 50, and an f stop of between 4-5.6.  Much of the difference in shutter speed will depend on how strong your headlamp/flashlight is.

Gear
Caves are cold by nature, most caves have temps in the mid 40s.   For wild caves bring waterproof jackets and durable pants, expect whatever you bring to get covered in mud and water.  Gloves are also a good idea, but bring gloves that give you good dexterity and strength, ski gloves are a bad idea because it’s hard to climb in them.  Try visiting a hardware store and asking for mechanic’s gloves.  These provide good padding excellent grip and are often cheap.  You’ll also want a helmet.  Most climbing shops rent rock climbing helmets at cheap rates ($5-$10 a day).  Bring TWO sources of light and back up batteries.  This is important, if you are in a cave with no light your chances of getting out unharmed are very slim.  Headlamps are a great choice since they free your hands to climb.

The more difficult caves will require technical climbing skills, wet suits, and advanced route finding which may mean bringing markers that you use to leave a trail and then remove before exiting the cave.

What to expect
Wild caves will be impossibly dark, cold and wet.  Many show caves are large enough that the cave doesn’t appear that wet but wild caves are covered in mud, water, dirt and grime.  Many of the rocks in wild caves are sharp placed about shin high.  If you bruise easily bring shin guards.  You’ll often forget how low the ceiling is,  without a helmet you’re likely to cut your scalp on low hanging rocks.   Many passages in wild caves are very tight.  It’s not uncommon to find passages less than 9 inches wide in wild caves.  Some of these will be partially filled with mud or have running water moving down them.

The experience is definitely less than comfortable but the rewards of a waterfall disappear into a black void and being unable to hear the sound of your own voice over the thunder of falling water is something you’ll remember for a long time. Some of my favorite memories of caves are actually of exiting caves, after been down in the cold earth and mud for hours emerging into a bluebird day with a flat horizon all the way around was jaw dropping, likewise seeing fall colors after hiking up to a cave at night and coming out in the day light was similarly flooring.

Regardless of which way you plan to go about it caving is a worth while experience than everyone should try at least once, if you have any questions or would like any advice on which caves to visit leave a comment and I’ll be happy to get back to you.

Eric Starling is a photographer and webmaster.  He also swears that once he sneezed with his eyes open.