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Spelunking!!
Talk about an extreme adventure. I went spelunking (extreme caving) this past weekend and it was a blast! A group of us drove up to Blountsville TN to the Appalachian Caverns outfitter for the "wild trip" cave tour. Which for those more adventurous, is a tour through the undeveloped parts of the cave. It's a 4 hour tour that gives you the feeling of what wild caving is all about. Not the pretty elaborate lighting system with dry walkways over underground river
s that allow you to walk leisurely along and enjoy the awe inspiring cave formations. No, this tour was all extreme. In fact, those dry walkways, well, we walked UNDER them, and to get from room to room, lets just say we crawled through some pretty tight places (caves). The tour started outdoors in what literally looked like a hole in the ground. When our guide Wes showed us what we would be going through, I shook my head and thought, "what the hell am I getting myself into." Well, we climbed down the hole and entered a small room about 3 feet tall and began crawling into our 4 hour tour. We walked through mud (I'm telling myself it was mud and not bat guano), we slide down wet, uneven rocks/boulders into streams, we forged murky underground rivers that were waist deep and icy cold, and we pushed, squirmed, and squeezed through tiny openings that I didn't think were possible. Now I have never been a claustraphobic person, but you get me into an 8 inch tall cave that's about 12 feet long and pitch
black dark and I start to panic. At one point I started hyperventilating and I had to remember what Wes told us. When we get stuck in a spot and feel panicked; relax, take deep breathes, and exhale all the air out of our lungs to make my body a bit smaller. I can remember one cave in particular, I'm crouching on all fours, and belly crawling down jagged rocks, while trying to avoid a stream that's rolling along down my path for about 15 minutes, and all I can say is thank goodness for knee pads! Well, we finally get to the end of the cave. I look around with my poor excuse for a head lamp. Seriously, this head lamp was so weak, I could barely see where to place my hands in front of me, which is pretty scary when there's lots of slippery wet rocks everywhere. Anyways, we get to what I think is the end of the cave and see the stream disappearing underneath the cave wall. All of us look at Wes, waiting for him to tell us to turn around and climb back out. But he looks at me and says, "we are going through there" (pointing at the stream thats flowing underneath the wall.) I was like, "your kidding right". Then I see him climb INTO the 5 inch tall stream, get down on his belly IN the icy water, and disappear underneath the cave wall! I had let the others go through while I took a moment to process what I was about to do. Squeeze underneath an 8 inch hole, IN a 
freezing stream, 300 feet below the earth, in a 50 degree cave. WOW, the lengths I go to for a thrill. hahaha! I finally get my nerve, throw my filthy muddy self into the icy stream and wiggle my way under the 8 inch tall hole. After everyone makes it into the room, Wes tells us he has never gotten an entire group into this cave room. We all high five one another and laugh at what we just did. Wes then gets this silly grin on his face and announces that now we have to go BACK through the same cave hole to continue our tour. I'm like WHAT!! (with a few expletives thrown in.) I barely made it through the first time! The only way I mentally wrapped my mind around going into the freezing stream on my stomach again, was knowing that I had already done it once. This adventure was both physically and mentally challenging, but like I said, I did things I didn't think were possible. I came, I caved, and I survived. Would I do it again? hmmmmm..., the verdict is still out. :)
s that allow you to walk leisurely along and enjoy the awe inspiring cave formations. No, this tour was all extreme. In fact, those dry walkways, well, we walked UNDER them, and to get from room to room, lets just say we crawled through some pretty tight places (caves). The tour started outdoors in what literally looked like a hole in the ground. When our guide Wes showed us what we would be going through, I shook my head and thought, "what the hell am I getting myself into." Well, we climbed down the hole and entered a small room about 3 feet tall and began crawling into our 4 hour tour. We walked through mud (I'm telling myself it was mud and not bat guano), we slide down wet, uneven rocks/boulders into streams, we forged murky underground rivers that were waist deep and icy cold, and we pushed, squirmed, and squeezed through tiny openings that I didn't think were possible. Now I have never been a claustraphobic person, but you get me into an 8 inch tall cave that's about 12 feet long and pitch
black dark and I start to panic. At one point I started hyperventilating and I had to remember what Wes told us. When we get stuck in a spot and feel panicked; relax, take deep breathes, and exhale all the air out of our lungs to make my body a bit smaller. I can remember one cave in particular, I'm crouching on all fours, and belly crawling down jagged rocks, while trying to avoid a stream that's rolling along down my path for about 15 minutes, and all I can say is thank goodness for knee pads! Well, we finally get to the end of the cave. I look around with my poor excuse for a head lamp. Seriously, this head lamp was so weak, I could barely see where to place my hands in front of me, which is pretty scary when there's lots of slippery wet rocks everywhere. Anyways, we get to what I think is the end of the cave and see the stream disappearing underneath the cave wall. All of us look at Wes, waiting for him to tell us to turn around and climb back out. But he looks at me and says, "we are going through there" (pointing at the stream thats flowing underneath the wall.) I was like, "your kidding right". Then I see him climb INTO the 5 inch tall stream, get down on his belly IN the icy water, and disappear underneath the cave wall! I had let the others go through while I took a moment to process what I was about to do. Squeeze underneath an 8 inch hole, IN a 
freezing stream, 300 feet below the earth, in a 50 degree cave. WOW, the lengths I go to for a thrill. hahaha! I finally get my nerve, throw my filthy muddy self into the icy stream and wiggle my way under the 8 inch tall hole. After everyone makes it into the room, Wes tells us he has never gotten an entire group into this cave room. We all high five one another and laugh at what we just did. Wes then gets this silly grin on his face and announces that now we have to go BACK through the same cave hole to continue our tour. I'm like WHAT!! (with a few expletives thrown in.) I barely made it through the first time! The only way I mentally wrapped my mind around going into the freezing stream on my stomach again, was knowing that I had already done it once. This adventure was both physically and mentally challenging, but like I said, I did things I didn't think were possible. I came, I caved, and I survived. Would I do it again? hmmmmm..., the verdict is still out. :)
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