caving

Deep inside the Earth, we stopped for lunch, weary explorers in an alien world.

We had crawled, slithered, slipped, inched, and stumbled down limestone passageways that had never seen the sun, exploring the secret corridors of the Cave of the Bells, not far from Sierra Vista in southern Arizona. Jerry Trout, who manages some of the world's most beautiful caves for the Forest Service, had enlisted a couple of veteran cavers and another ranger to provide a guided tour of the underground for photographer David Elms and me.

I'd worried a little about panic, disorientation, and claustrophobia but had steeled myself for the challenge. So far I hadn't embarrassed myself too much, bumbling along the bewildering maze of passages in the middle of our little column of adventurers. Now as everyone else shouldered their muddied backpacks and prepared to move back into a main chamber where David wanted to photograph, I lingered. I had developed the romantic writer's notion that there I could experience absolute darkness, silence, and solitude. So I sat calmly, as the waiting darkness swallowed the lights from their headlamps with surprising speed. Once all trace of light had disappeared, I turned off my headlamp. Absolute darkness crashed in on me. I felt a rush of fear and savored it. A faint, distant dripping punctuated the silence.

I thought I heard a sound somewhere in the darkness, almost a groan. I immediately flicked on my headlamp and wildly scanned the chamber. Hearing things, no doubt. Only lost crickets and mineral-eating bacteria live so deep.

The bats that once haunted these inner recesses of the cave abandoned it long ago. The drop in the bat population probably relates to changes in their wintering grounds in the tropics rather than to changes in the cave in which they used to roost in such numbers. But the Forest Service now controls access to caves still used by the bats to avoid disturbing them during their sojourns. In any case, though the sound in the darkness did not repeat, I'd experienced quite enough silence and solitude. So I decided to rejoin my companions.

Lost in the Cave of the Bells

bat population probably relates to changes in their wintering grounds in the tropics rather than to changes in the cave in which they used to roost in such numbers. But the Forest Service now controls access to caves still used by the bats to avoid disturbing them during their sojourns. In any case, though the sound in the darkness did not repeat, I'd experienced quite enough silence and solitude. So I decided to rejoin my companions.

I got lost almost immediately, groping along the passage for 30 yards before finding myself in an unfamiliar room. A tunnel passed through a crawl hole into another corridor that I didn't remember at all. I couldn't believe I could get lost so quickly and knew then that I would not find the front door without help.

Shaken, I returned to our lunch spot and advanced more slowly. I came to the same unfamiliar turning. I had nearly decided to call for help when I heard a distant muffled voice. I headed toward the sound until I stumbled upon an opening I'd missed before.

David and the other cavers were setting up the photo lights. I hung back and watched them work in a room filled with stalactites and stone curtains. Then they moved on to a huge chamber with a small lake and a row of broken spikes that Jerry noted might comprise the row of stalactites that had given the cave its name: Early cavers reported that they rang like stone tuning forks, hence, Cave of the Bells. Someone had broken off the whole row.

David worked methodically to capture the scene in the room. He'd even thought to bring along some bright-orange jumpsuits, which fit nicely over the utterly filthy jeans and long-sleeved shirts we'd been wearing beneath our knee and elbow pads. I held one of the three powerful synchronized flash units we'd hauled into the cave as David orchestrated the scene. The broken bells underscore the need to protect these caves. Fortunately, Trout has made a career of mapping and protecting the most vulnerable of the hundreds of limestone caves that run through the mountains of southeast Arizona. The surprisingly delicate formations of caves come about as the result of dripping water over the course of hundreds or even thousands of years. Rain seeps into the ground, gathers in cracks and fissures, then emerges into the warm, humid air of the cave. The abrupt change in temperature and pressure causes the minerals dissolved in the solution within the cold, pressurized water to crystallize abruptly, forming the intricate stone draperies, spires, balls, and fluted formations that adorn the caves. Even touching the tip of a growing formation can kill it because the oil from a human hand can disrupt the delicate chemistry, halting the centuries-long growth of a stone spike.

"People don't understand how delicate these caves can be," Trout noted. "They're like living things. In fact, the caves in which formations have stopped growing are considered 'dead' caves."

The Forest Service has put locked gates on many of the most vulnerable caves and instituted a permit system to control access. Trout regularly checks the caves' condition, which means he can usually spot new damage and figure out which permitted group of cavers might be responsible.

lost

In addition, groups of cavers from Tucson and Phoenix visit many of the caves regularly and watch zealously for damage.

Having located the group, I loitered around for a time, serving as a light stand. But suffering under the handicap of a short attention span, I soon returned to the stone curtain room David had photographed earlier.

The room had two entrances: a wide, easy opening and a back tunnel. I crawled through the back tunnel between stone columns that had fused the ceiling to the floor in places. A deeper darkness at the back of the room failed to yield to my headlamp. Crawling toward it, I discovered a small tunnel leading off into the blackness. Feeling suddenly brave, in I went on hands and knees. It narrowed. I continued. It narrowed some more. I scooted forward on my stomach then turned sideways as the passage narrowed even more. Then my belt hooked on a projection of rock. Unable to draw up my knees or bring my arms down to my sides, I threw my weight forward against the projection. No movement.

I was stuck.

I could hear my breath rasping, so I lay motionless, focusing on the yellow light of the headlamp attached to my helmet. The light seemed to grow dimmer as I watched, a thought that suddenly terrified me there in the absolute dark, hundreds of feet underground. I tried to bring my elbows down beneath my chest, but the space was too tight. So I twisted my neck, hoping my headlamp would reveal a handhold ahead. But the wall allowed only a slight tilt of my neck, so I groped blindly.

Still nothing.

I felt a faint flutter of panic. I began toflail, arms and legs flapping uselessly. After acquiring a few new bruises, I managed to recover my sense of dignity - all alone in the dark, beneath hundreds of feet of solid rock. I remembered the contempt with which a friend had described another caver who sometimes surrendered to a tantrum of fear in such situations. Fortunately, I also recalled the friend's suggestion that when you're stuck, you should change your time scale, rejoice in progress measured in fragments of an inch.

flail, arms and legs flapping uselessly. After acquiring a few new bruises, I managed to recover my sense of dignity - all alone in the dark, beneath hundreds of feet of solid rock. I remembered the contempt with which a friend had described another caver who sometimes surrendered to a tantrum of fear in such situations. Fortunately, I also recalled the friend's suggestion that when you're stuck, you should change your time scale, rejoice in progress measured in fragments of an inch.

So I set to wiggling my hips, tugging with my arms, and nudging with my feet. The first few efforts yielded nothing, but on the third try I shifted slightly. Unmistakably, I inched forward. In a few minutes I was through.

Reaching a larger chamber, I stood and stared 60 feet overhead to a ceiling on which dripping, gleaming, bubbling stone formations ran riot. Contortions of stone, the drippings of a thousand years frozen in time, covered the walls. The beam of my headlamp glinted off their moist surfaces. Rendered half breathless by a sense of reverence, I sat on the floor of the chamber and stared at the beauty crowding close upon me.

I can't tell you how long I sat there, imprisoned in stone time. I know that it will remain long in memory. Water dripped all around me, the humid warmth of the cave enfolded me, the mottled surface of the calcium pillars gleaming like moist tissue. I felt I'd been trapped in the lungs of a whale. I knew that the beast lived, breathed, grew, and changed. But I could not see the motion or feel its pulse because I was too small and frail and short-lived. But I knew the beast was there, dreaming its long stone dreams, just beyond my reach.

Rousing with difficulty from this illusion, I stared down the passage to the left. Summoning my courage, I again examined the too-narrow passage to the right before entering the tube to the left. With unexpected ease, I climbed down to a lake in a large chamber. The water looked about two feet deep. Heart pounding, I stepped away from the wall and waded across the lake a pond really the fine silt on the bottom swirling around my feet.

Climbing up the slope on the other side, I was amazed to find myself back in the large chamber where David and the others were finishing their photography.

I felt like Columbus wading ashore in the New World only to discover a pizza stand advertising weekly specials.

They greeted me casually. I gushed about my discovery. They listened respectfully enough, but one of the party partially deflated me by observing that he'd found that room about eight years ago but had since forgotten how to get into it.

No matter the room was mine. No one could take it from me now, not with the memory of the moment I stood and stared upward burned into my brain.

We packed up and made our way through the darkness to the entrance, feeling a sudden rush of relief when the first draft of fresh air washed across our faces. We emerged in a state of filth, covered with mud and sweat stains.

Driving home, I found myself still hyperalert to danger, half ducking as the headlights of oncoming cars made me see a low roof bristling with stone spikes in the darkness just beyond my hurtling headlights.