Cave!

[osprey_archer]

Yesterday I met my dad for a hike and a picnic in McCormick's Creek State Park. "Let's hike to Wolf Cave," Dad suggested. "When I was a young man, I went right through it."

"You can go THROUGH?" I boggled, having always assumed that the cave left off about where the daylight ended.

My dad keeps a headlamp in his car, because that's just the kind of person he is - a square flashlight on a headband, not a whole miner's hat ensemble - so we took that along, and lo! the cave DOES go back. We got a few turns in, and the ceiling lowered till we would have had to crawl, at which point Dad decided he is too old for this now; so I saw him back out to the entrance, and plunged back in myself.

The signs on the cave do not make it obvious that it goes through the hill like a tunnel, possibly because they don't want you to: it's very twisty and narrow, like a creek underground, which indeed is what it is: it's been worn out of the rock because the water rushes through every time the water gets high. There are branches on the smooth floor, left there by the last flood, waiting quietly in the darkness, and the rocks glitter in the light.

Just past where Dad had turned back, I found water standing on the floor. At first glance it looked fathoms deep, and I stopped short; but upon turning the light on it again, I realized that was an effect of the angle at which the light hit it, so I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my trousers and waded in. It was not so cold as I feared, but it did get slowly deeper, halfway up my shins; and just when I was beginning to think how deep I should wade before it would be the better part of wisdom to turn back, I turned the corner and saw light ahead.

It was a very low light, by which I mean low to the ground. The cave wall came down to a foot or two above the earth, and a puddle spread across the opening, so the only way out was to crawl - assuming there was enough space to crawl; I might have to creep on my stomach.

I put my shoes out onto the rocks, so they at least would stay dry, and got down on my hands and knees, and got through with one soaked thigh and a little water splashed on my stomach, which is pretty good all things considering.

...Then, having gotten safely through the cave, I made a mistake about the best way out to the trail. I followed what I thought was a path over a hillside, slipped on the mud, and gave the meaty part of my left thumb a jolly good whack on an outcropping rock. The bruise is unfairly unimpressive, but that part of my hand remains very stiff and sore.

Comments

[asakiyume]

OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO BRAVE

Crawling on hands and knees?! STANDING WATER. OMG OMG.

Good job!

(And that's just like fate to ding you with a fall after you'd done the main event.)

[osprey_archer]

To be fair I would NOT have dared if I hadn't known that Dad had gone through long ago: without that assurance it was possible I probably would have turned back at the water.

Also, as it turned out, I did not actually have to crawl till the very last part. I think, like the fathoms-deep water, the very low ceiling was a trick of light and shadow; there was a turn and it LOOKED like it got very low after it, but actually that was just a jutting outcropping that you could go around.

[asakiyume]

There's nothing you can say that will dissuade me from my image of you as The Most Intrepid.

[tei]

OH MY GOD this is so cool (and also the kind of terrifying shit I hate watching in movies because I know I am too much of a weenie to attempt it IRL 😂)

[osprey_archer]

I felt EXTREMELY pleased with myself, which is probably why I fell down the hillside. Pride goeth before a fall!

[kore]

OUCH your poor hand!

....I have to admit all this sounds like perfect nightmare fuel to me (crawl through a CAVE? In the DARK with WATER??) but I also had read that novel where the mountain climber crawls through a cave and finds Horrible Things and suddenly it came rushing back.

[osprey_archer]

I must admit I was thinking just a little bit about the book I recently read about the Thai boys' soccer team which got stuck in a cave for TWO WEEKS by rising waters... but fortunately in my cave the water remained quietly in its place.

[luzula]

This post gives me vague memories of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. Doesn't it have crawling underground, with water that you don't know when it will end? Or am I thinking of a different children's fantasy?

[regshoe]

Argh, yes it does—I remember being horrified by that bit! Brrrr...

[osprey_archer]

I have not read that book, but the cave would have been a perfect sequence for a children's fantasy, so I'm sure there's something like that in one somewhere.

[cyphomandra]

It does and I still get claustrophobic whenever I even think about it!! There’s a horrible bit with a tight hairpin bend, and then the bit where they have to swim underwater in the dark, knowing that they don’t have enough air left to turn back and argh argh argh. I tried reading it again last year to see if I’d grown out of it but no. Ironically actual caves don’t make me feel that trapped : D

[luzula]

I know there's other stuff in it (...a gemstone?), but it's really my most vivid memory of that book!

[regshoe]

Oh wow, that sounds like a very exciting adventure and also absolutely terrifying. Well done for making it through!

(and reminds me of the bit with the cave in Return to Night, horribly narrow passages and water glittering and all. I suppose you didn't meet any deeply significant symbolic goddesses :D )

[osprey_archer]

I did not meet any symbolic goddesses - or at least I don't REMEMBER meeting any... but I know goddesses don't always like that kind of thing remembered...

[skygiants]

THAT SOUNDS SO COOL

[osprey_archer]

SOMEDAY I will have the opportunity to put it in a book, and it will be so perfect.

[calandrahunter]

Ah yes, it's called WOLF CAVE and someone says you can totally go right through - I've seen that horror movie :p.

But yay for cave adventures! :D

[osprey_archer]

It's true, if there was any justice in the world I should have run into a wolf! Or at least the ghost of a long-dead wolf. Or VERY at least cave paintings of wolves??

[calandrahunter]

Reality is so disappointing!

[littlerhymes]

That sounds amazing and terrifying.

[osprey_archer]

It was less scary than people seem to think, possibly because once you're in the cave you're so focused on getting through the cave there is no time to be scared? "How do I get past this standing water," you think, and the cold of the water on your bare feet banishes all fear from your mind.

[lokifan]

This sounds TERRIFYING to me omg

[osprey_archer]

This seems to be the majority opinion! Did not realize people felt so strongly about caves tbh.