I was wedged in the passage’s tightest space. I held my helmet up and shined the light directly ahead. The passage seemed to go on into the infinite bowels of the earth. My breath came in heavy heaves. My heart raced. But, above all, my head gave way to terror. I felt trapped. Panicky. Alone.
When a young man named Eric recently invited me to go spelunking at Cave of the Winds in Manitou Springs, Colorado, I overcame my initial aversion to dark, dank, close, subterranean places. To my surprise, I accepted the invitation. Eric advised me to bring old clothes, gloves, kneepads and a flashlight.
The night before my day of caving, I awoke several times and sat bolt upright in bed. I’ve always been claustrophobic, and I worried about whether I’d freak. I wondered whether we’d see bats and spiders and blind albino fish.
Eric and his girlfriend Leslie met me outside the caves’ tourist attraction headquarters. The Cave of the Winds tour was a cake-walk with hand rails and electric lights — some colored to highlight mysteriously lovely formations of Creation’s underbelly: stalactites and stalagmites, cave flowers, flow stone, cave popcorn. Most of the spaces yawned wide. We walked straight up; my footing was sure on the textured concrete walkways. We even encountered other tour groups. My fear subsided.
Next, Eric transformed into Zeke — his 1895 character — to lead the lantern tour through Manitou Grand Caverns. Zeke struck a stick match on his front tooth, lit the candles in our metal bucket lanterns, and we three set off into the dark passages. Much of the time, we walked bent over until the muscles in my legs and back and neck ached. We saw no other people.
We blew out our candles and the darkness, Zeke said, was 40 percent darker than the darkest night above ground. To remain in such darkness for 30 days, he said, would cause blindness. And then insanity. I took his word for it when Zeke then had us find our way out of the passage without our candles. I ducked my head, wary as we felt our way through the velvety black.
The epiphany came in Manitou Cave during the Explorer’s Trip. We donned muddied coveralls, duct-taped on some kneepads, adjusted our miner’s helmets, pulled on gloves and scrambled through the small, metal tube entrance to the cave. The lights on our helmets penetrated complete darkness to illuminate a cave in its un-commercialized state. We were completely alone 95 feet below the surface of the earth, headed to Manitou Cave’s most challenging passage: Mind Bender.
Leslie went ahead of me, doing an Army crawl through a tunnel that upon sight unnerved me. But I followed Leslie, mainly because she’d disappeared down the passage. And after telling me I’d have to take off my helmet to fit through the passage, Eric had disappeared off in another direction.
I started down the passage, the damp dirt and cold limestone surrounding me. I pushed myself along with my toes, pulled myself along with my elbows until my fanny pack caught on a rock and I got wedged in the passage’s tightest space.
I held my helmet up and shined the light directly ahead. The passage seemed to go on into the infinite bowels of the earth. My breath came in heavy heaves. My throat seemed to close in on my windpipe. My stomach felt like macramé. My heart raced. But, above all, my head gave way to terror.
Suddenly, I felt the weight of the entire earth on my back. I thought about the 95 feet of rock above me. I thought about the mountains on top of that. I thought about earthquakes. Stephen King-like scenarios with reptilian cave beasts. I felt trapped. Panicky. Alone. Afraid. I wanted to be in the light, the warm sun, and the open air.
“I don’t know about this, you guys,” I said, and the shake in my own voice startled me.
Eric, like an underground angel, said, “You only have about six feet to go.”
I wormed my way to the end of the passage.
“That’s why they call the passage Mind Bender,” Eric said.
Because when one looks ahead, the narrow tunnel appears to go on another 60 feet. In reality, the passage drops into an open space that allows one to stand straight and walk away.
Sometimes, this explorer’s trip we call life puts us in tight, dark, uncomfortable positions. We feel stuck, sometimes, and we consider giving up because to look ahead is daunting; mind bending. What we need to remember is that our vision is limited. We can’t always see what’s in store. We assume the narrow, harrowing passageway won’t end — when God knows we have only six feet to go.
