The Underground

Crawling through cramped, slimy  passageways is far from the usual idea of a sexy outdoor weekend. It is not so glamorous as rock climbing or skiing, and most certainly is not as popular as hiking. There are no caving movies equivalent to ski porn to be found (and if there are, I don't want to know about them.)

Note: this is not cave porn.

Caving is a dirty, dark, and gritty activity. It requires that you have an ability to laugh at yourself, get covered in poop, and enjoy lots and lots of innuendos about virgin cave. You should be willing to hike long distances with a heavy pack just to lower into a dark hole and see what you can find.

You can find plenty of dead things, for instance.

Caving seems to draw in people who are somewhat on the strange side. This might be because the average person would look at that mysterious dark slot pictured above and understandably say "Hell, no."

As a (sort of) chaperone for a caving club, I not only purposely seek out these dark crevices, but rig up a group of teens to go in as well.

Like any other high school kids, they are goofy, giggly, and terrible at following directions. 

Seen here: actually following directions.

The more I get to know them, the more amazed I am by their ability to laugh and be silly. They all have a story with a little heartbreak. Some have lost one parent, or both. Some were abandoned by their parents. Each of them has more than enough reason to be broken individuals, but by looking at them you wouldn't have any idea.They are smart and funny and can quote every line from Star Wars (which gives me hope for the future).

So what kind of people are drawn into caving?

We aren't polished individuals, and certainly won't be posing for any outdoor magazines anytime soon.

You won't be strolling around a cave in designer outdoor clothes, sporting a lovely tan and a light sprinkle of perspiration. You will be hands and knees in the mud, and face first in the guano.

 You will unite with your fellow muddy cavers in fast friendship. Driving away from the cave, one of the girls sat up and said "Hey, Dreads" (for that is my very original nickname),"I like you a lot."

And deep down in my cold heart. . . I like them too.

If you tell people you've been caving over the weekend, you will get looks of slight confusion. A lot of them don't know that caving is a thing, or don't understand why anyone would want to do it.

I look at these kids and sort of wonder myself. What brought them here to a cave club, instead of basketball or cheerleading? It is far from the usual teenager's weekend commitment.

The caver's Slip n Slide

The answer, I suspect, might be mutual strangeness.

A caver desires to see something that few other humans have laid eyes on. To climb around in nature's most fantastic jungle gyms and become completely lost in an alien world. To climb out afterward and be absolutely stunned by ordinary colors and sounds we take for granted above ground.

Also: the desire to learn to levitate

 We are silly goof offs like anyone else, but we're a little weirder than most.

Just the way I like it.

Caving with the Stars

When you are jumping into something new, it's often hard to figure out just where to start. Even with outdoor adventure hobbies, it is a little intimidating--everyone seems to know what they're doing already. Why should they want to put up with some newbie?

After my last caving failure I figured it was time to draw on the help of caving experts. I got in touch with some Montana cavers who turned out to be friendly and welcoming. Go figure--as it turns out, sending a few inquiring emails around never hurts anything. Actually, that's the only way I've gotten anywhere in life so far. Sounding somewhat literate and reasonable in an email should be a college class, because I'm pretty sure it's more useful than a degree.

As a result, I back from my job in Alaska no more than eight hours before I was out the door with my caving bag packed, ready for an ice cave in the Pryor Mountains.

Getting personal with some paintbrush in the Pryors.

 I learned a few things from this trip. One: the best possible greeting from a stranger at 6 AM is an offer of sizzling bacon and eggs. Second, cavers are an established but small circle of people who all seem to know one another, so try not to screw up too badly.

 Like any other tight group, they are friendly but cautious of outsiders who don't understand. Some well-known people were there leading the caving party. They were legitimate cave explorers and mappers, whose names I had seen before in my cave research. And they kindly but firmly tossed me and another newbie friend I'd convinced to come along ("it'll be fun! no pressure!") into the lion's den.

Where my friend was promptly eaten.

I was a bit nervous about this trip being like a test, and I was right. We were led through a jumble of tight squeezes, short climbs and shallow drops--a cave obstacle course. At various points they asked us which direction the way back was--fortunately, it seemed more a pass or fail exam, and was not graded by percentage (whoops).

The cave was a great start to learning the art of the cave and the caver.

And looking at some cool shit.

Having your future depend on a first impression is unnerving.  I can't tell you that my performance was anything spectacular (it wasn't), but maybe my eagerness showed through anyway, because one of the leaders of the trip (I'll call him The Hammer) invited me to future caves in the fall.

Since then, I've been on a second trip with the Hammer, this time a training trip for a high school club learning to ascend vertical caves.  Everyone was welcoming, and seemed like my kinda people.

Alright--maybe there is room for one more new caver.

The takeaway from all this, I suppose: get out there and get to know people. Try something. It might not work out--it could be an embarrassing failure.

Into the Hole of Shame!

  But even if it is, at least you will have a story to tell (or not tell, at your own discretion. . . )

If you want to get involved with something, shoot an email somewhere. Nothing might happen, or something might.

Keep on cavin' on.

With Montana it is love. . .

If I ever forget why I love Montana (God forbid), haul me up and take me on a backpacking trip. There is something about traveling country by foot, and nothing else seems to be able to replace it. It is looking down at a dizzying drop, knowing it was your feet and legs, attached to your rapidly beating heart, that took you up there and nothing else.

Red Gap Pass, Glacier Nat'l Park

I try not to romanticize the outdoors in my own mind too much (though it is probably inevitable). The mountain does not give a shit that we are walking on it. The cold stream doesn't care. We can certainly impact these places, whether positively or negatively, but the earth does not care about our little ant scurries.

What we take away from it, however, is invaluable. I'm not really sure why, but as much as the mountains and rivers and lakes do not need people, people need them.

Preferably as grueling as possible.

 I probably could have stayed home all weekend and worked on chores, homework, and other life demands, and still not have finished everything. Instead I fled responsibility and escaped into the mountains--the Mission Mountains Wilderness, where I took a short backpack trip with friends. After spending an enjoyable night by a high alpine lake I still hadn't escaped my restlessness. That need had not been quite fulfilled.

Behold, Daughter of the Sun

The peak featured in the center of this photo sits solidly at 8,777 feet--not enormous, but an impressive mountain with a lovely name. The sight of it had teased us all the way up on our hike. Myself and an intrepid partner (or leader, more accurately. . . ) parted from the rest of the group to tackle the summit (see previous photo of ridiculous scree scramble).

Without a map or knowledge of a good route, we eyed a possible line up to the ridge and headed up. We hiked over a boulder field, which turned into near-vertical loose talus, and finally hit giant stacked boulders to scramble up and over all the way to the top. The route required Class 3/4 scrambling, according to the people at summitpost.org, but I wasn't expecting quite that much sheer vertical climbing. *After some research, turns out I accidentally did Class 5 (roped climbing) free solo on this trip. Don't try it at home, kids. . . *

I wish I had taken more photos to prove how epic the climb was, but on the other hand, I was pretty focused on not dying. The climbing was easy compared to the rock climbing I've done before-- except I was wearing hiking boots, a pack, and had absolutely no rope protection. Even Intrepid Partner, not known for his cautiousness, advised me to make sure every hand and foothold was 100% before I tried it.

"Looks solid."

Several times we attained false summits only to throw our hands up frustrated, realizing we had yet another ledge with hundreds of feet of exposure to climb. Returning the way we came seemed impossible (and in fact probably was). We had gone too far to turn back now. Somehow, inching across ledges and climbing up narrow slots, we made our way upward. Stepping onto the summit was a ridiculously joyous, heady moment.

At the summit, the rest of the world seems to stop. Human things look very small and inconsequential from up there. They look the way they ought to, maybe.

I was concerned about coming back down, knowing that downclimbing is much more dangerous. I took my time edging carefully back down the mountain, taking a slightly different route with looser rock but less exposure. I hopped down from solid hold to solid hold, sending showers of loose rock plummeting hundreds of feet to the ground. Intrepid Partner sailed down with a grin on his face, skiing (skreeing?) over the rocks in his boots. 

There wasn't much time for celebration at arriving on solid ground again. At the bottom, we shouldered our suddenly heavy overnight packs and continued on 6 miles down to the trailhead. Tired, but totally content (and in my case, happy to have some solid earth under my feet).

Why do humans seek adventure, and inherent with it, risk?

Sometimes, just because we can.

Just too good to pass up.

Arctic Summer

I remember how the walrus sunned

Himself, how geese rose oft with a purpose,

How the lemmings disappeared,

Imperceptibly as the summer,

Or the flower I had pressed in a book.

--Celia Brown

On Solo Backpacking

My first steps up the trail were uncertain. I looked back over my shoulder at the car, and then it vanished from sight. Oh well--I tugged at the straps of my heavy pack and hiked on up the creek.

It hadn't seemed like a big deal on the drive up to East Rosebud Trailhead. I have camped out, traveled to the Arctic, and hiked many long miles solo. But somehow, hiking out miles beyond any other human being to face the night alone, depending entirely on myself, seemed different.

It was an experiment of sorts. I'm a pretty social person and lived pretty closely with other people all summer, so I wondered how it would go.

During the hike, I was distracted by being extremely sweaty and out of breath (elevation is a killer). Eventually I got to choose exactly when and where I wanted to bed down for the night.

Time: a couple seconds before nightfall. Place: mountaintop

I was sweatier than I'd ever been in my life, but I stripped down without worries to cool off and dry out my clothes. I stretched out diagonally across my tent. I brought no food with me (due to lack of a method to store it bear-safely), so I contented myself with snacking on the numerous growing wild berries.

Sooo many raspberries

I barely slept that night. Less because of any fear or discomfort (though those were certainly factors) but because it was so novel. After the summer of daylight and being around people, this was the exact opposite. Loud hoof steps crunched around outside my tent, but besides that, it was absolutely silent. No birds or even insects chirped, and the wind was still.

By morning light, before the sun had come up, I packed up my camp and moved on. There was a lake with my name on it somewhere up ahead--I didn't know how far, but I was determined to make it somewhere, or else it seemed almost like a waste of effort.

I hiked on and on. I almost turned back several times, exhausted by lack of sleep and the thought of the long drive I had yet to do that day. No one was with me; no one would know.

But I kept hiking anyway. And finally that moment, standing by the lakeside in the 6:30 AM light, was pure magic. It took me that experience to finally understand.

You can hike at your own speed, stop to eat berries when you want. You can ignore certain comforts, like food, without worry of causing someone else misery. You can cuss like a sailor every step of the way, or be in a bad mood without affecting someone else. Everything is your decision, which also means if you fuck up, there's no one to take up your slack. If there is a monster outside your tent, only you can wrestle it.

I was alone, but I wasn't lonely. I'm not sure what this says for my future, but I do feel a bit freed. Company is appreciated but not necessary. We're all going through life alone anyway--it's just an illusion that we are doing anything else.

Grouse aaall alooone

The Wild Life

The world is an awfully big place. But you don't realize this, really, until you start to study its components. Specifically, until you're paying thousands of dollars to study them. (Welcome to wildlife biology).

There's only one life to live that we know of, so at some point you are going to have to make a choice. There isn't enough time to study them all.

Z

The fishes. . .

The birdies. . .

Or the beasts, and that's just to start. There are further divisions from there, of course.

Do you want to spend much of your time on foot, sweatily hiking through the undergrowth and waiting for a mountain lion to rip your throat out? Would you prefer spending your time on the rivers? Or staring at blurry bird-shapes through binoculars for hours on end?

These are questions that college doesn't really teach you to raise. Nor will your classes teach you the answer. The only answer is in getting your feet on the ground, sweating in the underbrush, and squinting at bird shapes for hours on end. If you hate it, awesome, you can cross that off your list. But if you love it so much that you are hooked forever. . .

Then you're pretty much fucked. Sorry.

Forget about it!!

Because you love the fish, and the birds, and those little green things that you're trampling on. Everything has its own beauty and logic to it, all pieces to that gigantic incredible puzzle that is the world.

You have absolutely no chance of understanding even a tiny corner of it in your lifetime. But it's alright. . . you can die trying.

And this gull will sneer at you for your efforts.

Alaska Season

When I first came to Barrow, everything around me seemed alien. From the moment I walked off the plane and inhaled the crisp 20 degree air, I didn't know what to expect.

I definitely thought the plane was going to touch down on the Arctic Ocean.

My new crewmates were immediately calling out names of birds I didn't know. On the first night, we surveyed birds from the vehicle until 1 AM (3 AM for my time zone). I was exhausted, eyes blurred from looking at tiny dots in the distance that were supposedly birds, and most of all freezing my ass off. I wondered if I was really prepared for this. At first the tundra seemed dead and cold. As the days passed, I was forced to open my eyes and really look.

It started with one tiny little buttercup blooming amongst the brown dead matter. I earned the nickname Princess Buttercup because of my excitement over this one little flower. But it meant the world to me.

When I started working up here in Alaska, birds flying overhead were just birds. The tundra was just a thick mat of brown sludge to tread over. But if I have learned anything here, it is that everything is something. By which I mean, that bird flying overhead has a name, and it matters. It might be a loon winging past, or a jaeger or a duck--maybe even a snowy owl if you're lucky. And the nameless husks of plants I walked over? I made it my goal to know them all, and fairly well succeeded.

Photo taken on the "desolate" tundra

The eider crew members became like a family, each of us with our unique quirks. On memorable occasions we cut off our own hair to fashion ourselves mustaches just to prank someone, or baked and decorated a cake just to eat it in front of the Cake Eater Road sign.

But mostly, we hiked. We walked--or more appropriately at times, slogged--through miles and miles of the tundra each day. I caught the eider bug, and came to adore the creatures (and identify them from quite a distance).

Seeing double male Steller's eiders

Another incredible part of this adventure has been experiencing a different culture and living very close to it. The Inupiat people give us permission to conduct these studies on their land, and everyone I have met has been very welcoming. We were invited to their gatherings, such as their Fourth of July games where everyone takes part in competitions. I joined in on the annual marathon (two laps around town, or 6 miles), my longest race yet.

In two short months, I have learned a considerable amount. Above all, I think I have begun to think like a scientist. It doesn't come naturally to me. But I was curious about everything I saw here. What appeals to me about science is that it all starts with that--just plain old curiosity. Without it, you have nothing.

You wouldn't have these adorable goslings!

Tomorrow is my last day in Barrow. My last day to soak up this experience. It seems like I just got here but it is already time to move on to new ventures--namely, my junior year of college. Life has to keep moving, as always. But this place is unforgettable. And I have no regrets.

I do not regret doing my required polar plunge shortly after this photo was taken.