Doing battle with the earth's crust

I did this cave tour near sacramento. I was thinking it would be a little climbing and whatnot. Wow, was I wrong.

I have a slight fear of heights. I like to call it a "healthy" fear.

Looking at the brochure they advertised a rappel thing. "Sure, what the
heck. I'm on vacation! What the heck is a rappel anyway?" I called and
booked a reservation.

Bad idea. Very stupid. I've made some awful choices in life, but given my fear of heights, this has to be up on the top-ten list.

I showed up for the tour really late and called in to let them know. The guide talked to the other participants and they very graciously agreed to wait for me. But as a result of this infraction, I was "volunteered" to be the first to rappel.

The three hour cave tour started with the 160 foot rappel drop, and 100 feet of it was free-fall. At some point I hung in mid-air in a massive cavern and made the colossal mistake of looking around. The natural beauty struck me for a second, a very BRIEF second, let me emphasize. But as that second faded, it suddenly hit me: WHAT WAS I THINKING??!!. I was scared out of my bleep bleep bleeping mind.

I got to the bottom and sweat was pouring out of me. My blood sugar was plummeting. They told us not to eat too much for breakfast because once we were underground the no poopie rule goes into effect.

I told the guide I needed a coke or something, so I ended up climbing 270 stairs back to the gift shop, pounded a coke, reminded myself that I wasn't dead, and went back down.

Then the actual tour started. Did I mention, I also have some
claustrophobia?

After a short decent into a pit, which was nothing I hadn't done in my youth around the creeks, the real tour started. I was instructed to drop into a pitch black tunnel whose mouth looked about the size of a basketball. They called it "godzilla's nostril". Wow, that's funny. Hilarious.

I siezed up.

Surely THAT was not where I was meant to go. There had to be another
tunnel. I frantically panned my headlight around until I realized, yes, that's where this sadistic death march was headed.

Now, for any of you that has a fear of anything, you know what I'm talking
about. All ability for rational thought instantly vaporizes and your
adrenal gland redlines. Imagine if you were to look over and see a
fist-sized scorpion sitting on your shoulder. That was my initial sensation
when I saw that hole.

I explained to the guide that maybe this wasn't a great idea. She gave me a minute to consider it before I took the plunge. She explained that this first part was the tightest it got.

I took a few deep breaths and calmed down. What made the difference was there were a couple of, how shall we say, "fat guys" in the group that had already gone. If they could fit down this passage, surely I'd be okay.

A couple times sliding down I had to twist and turn. It was really tight! I don't know how the big guys got through it. But there was no way to go but down, down, down. So I simply accepted, I must go down!

Then I got stuck. My hips were too wide. Pitch black, no room to move and I'm jammed in this crevice. Just great. I couldn't even move my arm to punch myself in the face.

I controlled my breathing and imagined a plate of nachos waiting for me at the bottom. Soon enough I realized my coveralls were just snagged. I had a turbo wedgie. "Let go of me stupid cave!" RIP! Uh oh, I tore the butt out of my coveralls.

In another minute or so I was down. Finally, I relaxed and enjoyed myself. I was still freaked out, but I was back in control.

Time seemed to be in fast forward. We crawled on our bellies through mud and over rocks. Connecting the tight passages were manhattan studio-sized apartments that gave short reprieve.

Before I knew it, the tour was over. I thanked the guide profusely and I'm going to send her a thank you letter. She was kinda cute, too! It was an awesome experience.

I went back to my bro's place in sacramento still pretty wired from the whole thing. I asked what they had planned for dinner. My bro was feeling slightly under the weather and said he had burgers defrosting. I said forget the burgers. Tonight, we eat like Kings. Tonight, we will have nachos!

On their advice, I didn't bring my camera since it might get destroyed. But on their web page you can see pics from other trips.

http://caverntours.com/ATpictures/index.htm

All in all, it was a TON of fun and a totally new experience for me. I am already looking into the Middle Earth Expedition at one of their other caves. That one is five hours!

OH MY LORD!!!!!! LOL Glad to see you made it out alive!
Next time take the camera! Even if we only get before and after shots!

P.S.
Hope you didn't have to pay for the coveralls lol

Wow, sounds intense... loved the story though, I hope you're not too tramatized from the experience!

On this page is a good pic of the rappel that gives a sense of the height involved. The spiral thing on the right side is the staircase that goes back to the top.

http://www.longbarn.com/caverns.htm

Here's a high-res PDF of the main cavern rappel at Moaning Cavern taken by their photo guy, Bill Becher. This one *really* gives you an idea of why looking down is not a great idea.

http://caverntours.com/ATpictures/PDFs/bbAT20.pdf

320 wrote:

On this page is a good pic of the rappel that gives a sense of the height involved. The spiral thing on the right side is the staircase that goes back to the top.

http://www.longbarn.com/caverns.htm

You walked up ALL those stairs just for a COKE?!

Hope it had something else in it!

Wow, that looks very cool!

When the fam and I go on vacation we always look for a good cave.

This is going on my list of places to see.

Went caving once a long time ago, it wasnt the tight spaces but not being able to walk a couple days afterwards because your knees and stomach are bruised and scraped so badly that kept me from going again... (thats about when I started aggressive skating... )

Went rapelling another time which was much easier than climbing with a fear of heights cause you dont really get the urg to stop and cling to the rock.

Wow, I really enjoyed reading your story! Turbo wedgie...man, that was brilliant. Kudos to you for overcoming your fears. I'm not a heights fan myself, so I know exactly how you feel. One of the day activities we did for a dance in high school was rock wall climbing. I got less than halfway up and froze, that's when they told me to just let go...ha, right.

Thanks for sharing!! And climbing that many stairs for a Coke is very worth it!!

B_B

Wow, Im sitting here eating cold chinese and you ate nachos? Can I face my fears and get Nachos? If I fear Nachos will I automaticly get them if I face them?

Will brenda date paul?

Who is brenda?

I think that Im off topic. AGAIN!

I think that my dad took me to that cave when I was 6. Hard to remember because we visited so many caves when I was young. Heck, Who am I kidding, I have trouble remembering my phone #.

Continuum wrote:

Went caving once a long time ago, it wasnt the tight spaces but not being able to walk a couple days afterwards because your knees and stomach are bruised and scraped so badly that kept me from going again... (thats about when I started aggressive skating... )

Went rapelling another time which was much easier than climbing with a fear of heights cause you dont really get the urg to stop and cling to the rock.

They gave us knee and elbow pads. I just used the knee pads. I got a couple good bruises. But nothing like my old paintball days.

That tour sounded extreme. But you mean to tell me you didnt know what a repel was??

I have heard of that tour before. I so want to go on it and see what it is like. Well I'm glad you got back safely 320.

I truly hope that you know you have a knack for humorous writing... because I couldn't stop laughing. My brain undestood that you were in distress and that it wasn't a pleasant experience for you... but that was a very funny story!

that would sound like fun if you didnt get nervous an all. .Too bad.. I checked out the website and it looks gorgeous absoulty stunning..

You definitely would not enjoy some of the things I have done over the years then! I have done my share of both climbing and spelunking, and even did rescue climbing for the local VFD down home while in HS. I had no problems with that, though I get a bit nervous on man made structures such as antenna towers (200+ft up on a tower which sways about a foot as you pull up an antenna is spooky). I have even rappelled from a helo on one rescue climb, after we determined that brush would force us to an unsafe approach. The one I really would not mind trying sometime is cave diving, like you can do down in Florida...

Anyways, facing your fears, and not only going screaming through them, but attacking them as you did, even if you did not originally know what you were getting yourself into says quite a bit about your character. Such is true bravery. The fact that you did so after the trip for the soda says even more, and the fact that you are looking at doing it again, well, you get the idea.

Here is a BIG pat on the back, and a "Well Done!"