Wandering around in the dark

This weekend, I had a chance to drive up to Minnesota to go caving with my friends, Jorge and Val. Apparently, they've been trying to get a spot on the wild/off-route tour of Mystery Cave for several years but it always books solid before they have a chance to sign up. This year, it took a state government shut-down and a complex website stalking operation to finally snag reservations for 3. Our personal thanks go out to Governor Tim Pawlenty and the hard economic times for making the weekend possible.

We geared up in knee pads, elbow guards, helmets, headlamps, lug-boots, and cave packs then followed a man in a blue and orange jumpsuit down a nice sidewalk in search of a cave. Using our impressive skills as master cavers, (i.e. following the clearly marked signs along the paved walkway), we eventually found the cave entrance and then spent 4 hours in the dark, cold underground.

I was impressed by virtually everything about the experience, but a few things especially stood out:

1. Moving through tight spaces. There were places along the passageway where we were flat on our bellies, heads turned sideways because the helmets wouldn't fit vertically, creeping along using fingernails and toe scoots. The human body is remarkably pliable! (Note: When possible, I tried to let Jorge go ahead of me. The wisdom in that was that he's bigger, so I figured that if he fit I would fit. The downside was that he ate a lot of cabbage the day before.)

2. Leadership. A good leader enables his/her followers to feel competent at the task at hand, even if they aren't fully skilled at it. Our guide, Greg, was exceptional at this. He knew every twist, turn, and pebble along the route and gave us plenty of clear advance-notice of what was coming up and how to deal with it. He eased us in via easier routes, getting us really comfortable first before gradually leading us into a claustrophobic's worst nightmare. He gave us candy.

3. Darkness. At one point, we made our way through a narrow channel sloping downward to the edge of a deep drop-off. Shining the headlamps down the chimney, the light couldn't reach its bottom. Greg had us gather there on the edge of the bottomless chasm and turn off all our lights. Total darkness. Sitting there without eyes, I could feel the rest of my senses wake up. My skin picked up the cave moisture and the breath of the caver beside me. I could smell a million years of earth. We could hear a river running 50 feet below us. I would swear that river hadn't existed at all while our lights were on.

4. Caving as a metaphor for life. I'm sure there's something profound to be learned here, but all my attempts to put it together come out awfully heavy-handed. Sometimes, life takes you through your darkest, deepest, worst nightmare where the ground is rocky and your hands are bleeding and the walls are closing in. You come out of it muddy, scraped up, blinking into the light, wearing grubby plastic bags on your feet. But what's the bigger moral to that story? Help me out.