Cave Dwelling

I went summer adventuring in the Lewis and Clark Caverns outside Three Forks, Montana. Went into the caves, down and down and down, through magnificent stalagmite and stalactite formations, past the colony of fluttering brown bats, as we clamored down, squatting at times, duck-walking, sliding down the slippery bits, careful not to hit our heads, then exclaiming in awe – again and again- at the next room-full of treasures, hearing and sometimes feeling the drip-drip-drip that is continuing to create these extraordinary configurations. Confronted the tiny prickles of fear about how much oxygen is in a cave, and whether humans in general should be in caves, and whether I, in particular, was safe, wondered whether I should have taken the guide up on her offer at “Decision Rock” – the last place on the tour where one could turn around, mount the 125 steps already descended, and go back to the cave opening. Whether I was asking just a bit more of myself than I should, since until that day I hadn’t quite known what spelunking was.

I did what I know you’re supposed to do with fear – notice it, honor it, and put it aside as I went along, slowly picking my footing, taking pictures (hard to get good pix in a dark cave on a mediocre digital camera, but still I tried), and gasping with wide-eyed wonder at each new turn, each set of steps descended, each new mineral cache. My mind took several tries to comprehend the sign that read, “One mile high” at the point where we’d been constantly descending the cavern for over 90 minutes, and had reached a height that was one mile above sea level. I’m still processing the idea that each of the 600 carved steps required three days of a man’s labor – hauling materials in buckets in and out of the two mile path within the cave itself, not to mention carrying materials up the side of the mountain to reach the cave entrance.

Our tour guide sprinkled cave jokes (apparently there’s such a thing as cave humor) into her impressive information about the cave, its founders, the people who came after, and offered up explanations of all the different types of limestone formations. There was also a moment where the guide shut off her flashlight and plunged our group into darkness more complete than ever encountered in civilized life. She’d just finished her story of a guy who got trapped in the cave for 72 hours with no light, and ended up hallucinating, not knowing if he was lying down or standing up, crazed and blinded by darkness. I sidled close to my husband to hold his hand, the body connection a protective talisman as we were plunged into total blackness.

After this, my fears of being in the cave were gone. I felt stoked and strong and brave and powerful and, at the same time, tiny and inconsequential in the grander scheme of amazing things on this Earth.

Near the end, the guide pointed her flashlight beam on an area of circuitous, curly, spindly formations, nothing like the others that grow vertically, as these spread horizontally as they curve and wind and meander. These, she said, are helictites, which she pronounced with a raw, guttural chhhh instead of a plain “h.” “Can you say, “helictites”?” she playfully asked our group of visitors, and I was the only one who could without even the tiniest hesitation.

They seemed to have been made just for me – a Yiddish-sounding limestone formation as unique in the cave as my long curly locks in a sea of Montana tourists.