Caving may not be the most popular sport around, but caving enthusiasts are fine with that. To be frank, they’re quite glad about the relative anonymity of their sport, which protects their beloved hidden places from damage.
Taking his first caving trip accidentally in 1960 at the age of 12, Bruce Smith was immediately hooked. Now the proud owner of On Rope 1, Inc., in Harrison, Tenn., Smith is consulted by practically everyone making a movie or writing a book concerning caving.
“I joined an Explorer Group because I wanted to get into sailing. The first meeting we put the boats away, and I was told they go caving in the winter. My first reaction was, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’” he recalls with a laugh nearly 40 years later. “But I never did go sailing.”
Heather Garland’s story is similar. A biologist working for the Tennessee chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Garland began her career surveying her first loves—frogs, toads, and salamanders. However, when a grant was received to hire someone to study caves full time, she jumped at the chance.
“I was at the right place at the right time,” she says, while gathering rocks on the side of a highway in Rutherford County, Tenn. “I began learning as much as I could about caves—what lives in them and how the ecosystem of caves works. It was learning by necessity, but I was already interested in caves, so learning more about them was fun.”
DISCOVERING CAVES
Caving almost every weekend since the early 1980s, Alan Cressler, technician with the U.S. Geological Survey, has been in more than 3,500 caves across the globe. From warm Puerto Rican caves to the deepest cave in the world located near the Black Sea, Cressler caves for personal satisfaction and regularly as an assistant for a National Geographic photographer.
Despite having traveled the globe to crawl and rappel into caves, Cressler’s work with the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Department in Knoxville still gets him excited.
“One of my passions is cave archaeology. As we’re learning, prehistoric humans used caves a lot in the Southeast, so there are always new discoveries to be made,” he explains. “These people walked for miles into caves and used them for shelter, to perform ceremonies, to draw images on the walls, to remove resources, and sometimes just to look around. It’s truly fascinating.”
On Rope 1, Inc., employee Wm Shrewsbury makes his way to a cave two or three times a month. For Shrewsbury, who has traveled as far as Borneo to find a good cave, the most exciting part of caving isn’t discovering why other people used caves. Rather, his biggest thrill is going where no man has gone before.
“When you’re caving, you can feel like you’re completely separated from the rest of the world, but it’s not meant to be a solitary sport,” Shrewsbury says. “Some enjoy mountain biking, others like to climb. For me, I like to cave. It’s just a fun thing to do, and caving with other people makes the experience safer and more fun.”
Garland couldn’t agree more with Cressler and Shrewsbury.
“You think you know it all,” she says, “and then something new pops up.”
The things that have popped up for Garland include nearly a dozen newly discovered species of invertebrates such as millipeds. And no, that’s not a misspelling.
“Cave biologists spell millipede without the final ‘e’. I don’t know why they do it,” Garland admits. “I’ve just been told to spell it that way.”
CAVERS TO THE RESCUE
Along with being avid cavers, Smith, Shrewsbury, and Alison Falinski are all part of the Chattanooga Hamilton County Rescue Service Cave/Cliff Rescue Unit. Most people on the team caved for years, were part of an unorganized cave rescue effort, and wanted the satisfaction of being part of an organization dedicated to helping injured or lost cavers escape the certain death that awaits those trapped underground.
Falinski, however, had never gone caving before being asked to join the Cave/Cliff Rescue Unit eight years ago.
“My husband and I used to whitewater canoe a lot. Beth Elliott, a friend in our Paddling Club, said the Cave/Cliff Rescue Unit needed a medic. Since I was a physician’s assistant, Beth said I would be perfect,” Falinski recalls. “I told Beth I had never been caving, but she didn’t care. She said she would change that.”
And she did. After only one trip, Falinski was in love with caving. Over the years, Falinski has assisted in a number of rescues. And while being called out on a rescue is exciting, everyone on the team is glad the rescue business is slowing down. Much of this is due to cavers being more educated and using higher-quality equipment.
Here are a few reasons the Chattanooga Hamilton County Rescue Service Cave/Cliff Rescue Unit may need to perform a rescue and how potential cavers can avoid needing rescue:
• inability to communicate with others due to loud waterfalls or other natural phenomena, which can be remedied by communicating with hand signals or walkie talkies
• not knowing the way around a cave and getting lost, which can be remedied by becoming familiar with the layout of the cave before entering and referring to a map frequently
• slipping into a pit due to improper footwear, which can be remedied with a good pair of boots and constant precaution
• having poor communication, which can be remedied with clear words such as “stop” and “go” instead of “oh, wait a second, hey, ho,” etc.
SAVING THE CAVES
“Our nation’s caves are very much at risk, because they’re affected by all that happens to the surface above them,” Garland says.
Since caves are practically everywhere you turn in the xRegion (there are more than 8,000 documented in Tennessee alone, more than any other state), you can never let your guard down. Caves get damaged in a variety of ways. Careless cavers may leave trash in a cave or disrupt a cave’s walls, potentially creating a domino effect that will cause increased erosion over time. Small holes that lead into caves may get closed up, causing creatures to be unable to enter caves. As cave-dwelling creatures depend on these holes for food, this can be devastating.
To help preserve caves, a group called the Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. (SCCi), was created. Governed by an elected group of board members, the SCCi’s sole purpose is to buy and conserve caves. If a private landowner wants to keep a cave in his or her own possession, the SCCi will lease the cave from the landowner. By leasing the cave, the SCCi assumes responsibility for protection of the cave and works with landowners who don’t want to sell or donate their caves to the SCCi on liability issues.
Thanks to the SCCi, caves, cavers, and landowners are protected.
What can you do to help save caves? Be responsible.
“Very little water travels through the xRegion without passing through a cave at some time,” emphasizes Garland. “Therefore, everything you do that may tamper with the water supply in your area may ultimately affect cave life. Pollution such as pesticides and sediment can find its way into water traveling through caves, so be very careful what you toss out your window and sprinkle on your grass.”
For more information on the SCCi’s efforts, visit www.SCCi.org or call (615) 585-5277. To learn more about all aspects of caving, visit the National Speleological Society at www.caves.org or call (256) 852-1300.
Published in xplor.
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