Going Underground
I spent about an hour today inside of the earth.
Earlier, I had ridden up a 500 foot lava cone butte outside Bend called, creatively enough, “Lava Butte;” then, about a mile beyond, I explored the Lava River Cave, a lava tube cave that extends underground for a mile and a half, dropping some 200 feet in the process.
I love caves.
Last summer, Jen, Mimi, and I went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and it was absolutely awe-inspiring. Even though it’s something of tourist trap, I found it impossible to be anything but amazed by the natural wonder of the place; my appreciation for the place was without a shred of irony.
When I was a teenager, I would go to a limestone cave called Laurel Caverns, about an hour from Pittsburgh. At that time, they let you do your own self-guided tour with a map of the underground. I liked to go as far as the map would take me, then turn off my flashlight and sit in the quiet darkness. Even wedged into a coffin-sized space, unable to see my hand before my face, I felt no claustrophobia. Rather, I was met with an overwhelming calm—except when I dropped my flashlight and the batteries fell out, leaving me with no escape from the pitch blackness until I managed to paw around in the dirt and find them.
Today, I remarked that my reaction to being in a cave differs from most people’s. When I’m underground, I want to be quiet and respectful; I want to experience the interior of the earth unmediated by words. Most of my fellow spelunkers, though, were gabbing away or singing loudly to hear the cave’s echoes.
I’m sure there’s something Freudian about my desire to stay hunkered down inside mother earth; or maybe today it was just that inside the cave was a cool 42 degrees, while on my ride back to Bend it was about 85.
Earlier, I had ridden up a 500 foot lava cone butte outside Bend called, creatively enough, “Lava Butte;” then, about a mile beyond, I explored the Lava River Cave, a lava tube cave that extends underground for a mile and a half, dropping some 200 feet in the process.
I love caves.
Last summer, Jen, Mimi, and I went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and it was absolutely awe-inspiring. Even though it’s something of tourist trap, I found it impossible to be anything but amazed by the natural wonder of the place; my appreciation for the place was without a shred of irony.
When I was a teenager, I would go to a limestone cave called Laurel Caverns, about an hour from Pittsburgh. At that time, they let you do your own self-guided tour with a map of the underground. I liked to go as far as the map would take me, then turn off my flashlight and sit in the quiet darkness. Even wedged into a coffin-sized space, unable to see my hand before my face, I felt no claustrophobia. Rather, I was met with an overwhelming calm—except when I dropped my flashlight and the batteries fell out, leaving me with no escape from the pitch blackness until I managed to paw around in the dirt and find them.
Today, I remarked that my reaction to being in a cave differs from most people’s. When I’m underground, I want to be quiet and respectful; I want to experience the interior of the earth unmediated by words. Most of my fellow spelunkers, though, were gabbing away or singing loudly to hear the cave’s echoes.
I’m sure there’s something Freudian about my desire to stay hunkered down inside mother earth; or maybe today it was just that inside the cave was a cool 42 degrees, while on my ride back to Bend it was about 85.
posted by Professor Dave at 4:04 PM
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