NewsFebruary 2, 2023
Wild caving group explores unseen world
There’s a line I’ve loved since high school from the song “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service. It goes like this: “I’m staring at the asphalt wondering what’s buried underneath where I am.” It’s a lyric situated in the middle of a breakup song, and I have always loved it because it takes us out of ourselves, asks us to consider what isn’t visible, to consider the history of what has been in a place before us, to consider the fact our existence and experience of a place isn’t necessarily the only way it’s been. ...
There’s a line I’ve loved since high school from the song “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service. It goes like this: “I’m staring at the asphalt wondering what’s buried underneath where I am.” It’s a lyric situated in the middle of a breakup song, and I have always loved it because it takes us out of ourselves, asks us to consider what isn’t visible, to consider the history of what has been in a place before us, to consider the fact our existence and experience of a place isn’t necessarily the only way it’s been. Other people and civilizations and events have come and lived and gone before us. There is more than what we can see.
In Perry County, where me and six generations of my family have lived, there are approximately 700 discovered caves. With approximately 7,000 discovered caves throughout Missouri, Perry County is home to 10% of the state’s caves. Four of the five longest caves in the state are in Perry County: The longest, Crevice Cave, is a more than 31-mile cave system, followed by Berome Moore Cave, approximately a 24-mile cave system. The fourth and fifth longest, Mystery Cave and Rimstone River Cave, are approximately 14 and 12 miles, respectively, and also in Perry County.
“This is literally a different world we’re going into,” caving leader and Semo Grotto vice president Gerry Keene tells us at the training course a few days before we go below ground. “[There’s] nothing like it. It’s awesome.”
It can be easy, when we grow used to something, to think we know it all. To stop wondering. To think what we see is all there is. I have never thought about what’s buried underneath the grass I can see before. But I am ready to find out.
***
We arrive on Saturday morning, ready to explore. I am disappointed to learn the term “spelunking,” which I had been using to refer to exploring caves, has fallen out of fashion in the caving community; when I use it in general conversation, hardly anyone knows what it means, and it is fun to teach them a new word. It is also a fun word to say, all those consonants jammed together in such an awkward way, kind of like my limbs in the cave as I crawl through spaces where my elbows and knees fold up and bend in positions I’m not used to. “Spelunking” sounds like it feels. I like to say it.
But it’s fallen out of fashion because “spelunking” refers to people breaking the rules of cave exploration, doing the things you’re not supposed to do, like trespassing or not taking the proper safety gear or going alone, which can result in injury or death. Instead, “caving” is the term applied to the safe way of exploring caves, which is what we’ll be doing.
Caving is a team sport, Gerry says, and groups need to be comprised of at least three people to safely explore. There are 10 of us “newbies” of varying ages — three parents, four children, two of my coworkers and me — and three guides on our exploration. We get our gear — helmet, headlamp, gloves, knee and elbow pads — and are ready to go.
We’re exploring Streiler City Cave, a wild cave that opens up at Viola Blechle Park in the middle of the city of Perryville. It’s approximately one mile long, and we enter through a gated storm drain. I expect to feel slightly claustrophobic as I crouch down to walk through the drain, but am surprised to find I don’t. I feel partly unsure, partly like a Ninja Turtle, partly excited to do something totally new.
To get into the cave, we have to crawl down a 20-foot ladder. I don’t like ladders, and this is the part I have been most apprehensive about. I watch several of my co-explorers — the children and one of my coworkers — crawl down before me. Then, it is my turn.
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“Look at your hands; your feet will figure it out,” Gerry coaches as I climb down the ladder. It helps, and sure enough, I reach the solid rock a few steps later. I learn: I can trust my feet.
I use my headlamp to look around: the craggy brown and gray walls extend for 20 feet above us, and I feel small. The walls on all sides of me are made of stone, and the ground is made of mud. Everything forms upside down in a cave, Gerry says; the ceiling is the oldest part. Caves are formed by water running downwards from the surface of the earth below the ground; they are alive, still evolving, ever-growing. Crevice Cave, the longest cave in the state that is in Perry County and was carbon dated by scientists with National Geographic, has formations in it Gary estimates are approximately one million years old.
Once everyone is in the cave, we move forward as a group. There are many “opportunities to excel,” as Gerry calls them, by which he means challenges off the beaten path that are up for exploration. For one of these opportunities, I belly crawl into a crevice where the ceiling and floor are only a couple of feet apart, and then quickly back my way out; I don’t like tight spaces, and even though I know I’m safe, my mind gets to me.
We walk through knee-deep water, and my muck boots fill up. One of the boys who is eight years old delightedly squeals, “This feels amazing!” and I decide to adapt his childlike delight for the duration of this adventure. As we continue moving farther into the cave, the children’s and my coworker’s enthusiasm and spirit of adventure are contagious. They are up for getting as dirty as possible and for exploring all of the crevices of the cave, and as we go deeper in, they give me courage to follow them and not miss out. I crawl into and then up a tight passageway in which I learn to use my body weight pressed against the walls of rock to help me ascend. I belly flop over a mud formation. I slide down a giant mudslide, and that is my favorite.
Halfway through our exploration while we are resting, Gerry tells us to turn off our headlamps. The pitch blackness is total, complete; we cannot see in front of our faces. I am in awe and comforted; it feels somehow peaceful to have my eyes open and yet to not be able to see. The children, though, get anxious and want to keep playing; they switch their lights back on, and we continue exploring.
The heyday of caving in Perry County occurred in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, Gerry says. In 1954, there were four known caves in the county; by 1980, there were 300. The caver Tex Yokum developed a technique to systematically survey the caves and mapped many of them. Still today, members of the Semo Grotto use the wintertime to discover and map more caves, most of the time by spotting steam coming up from the ground, which signals a cave entrance. Last winter, they found 20 caves.
Gerry says they have seen a cat, dog, frogs, raccoons and endangered fish only found in Missouri in caves throughout Perry County before; on our adventure, we see a lot of salamanders and crickets. It’s not the wildlife that amazes me, though; it’s the fact that a whole self-sustaining way of life exists below where I walk every day, and it exists naturally and purposefully, as a drainage system for the rainwater of Perry County. All of the unseen work of water over such a long period of time is incredible to me; it is slow, calculated, patient, creating something beautiful. Not for attention, but simply to exist while everything above is unaware. It teaches me to trust, myself and others and the rock itself — to help me, to teach me, to be sure.
“Not many people have stood face-to-face with a million-year-old formation. It’s humbling,” Gerry says. “If you ever want to see God at work, just go in a cave. It’s there.”
***
Once we are standing back on the grass above ground in the light, everything looks the same. The rows of houses still stand unassumingly next to the park. The playground equipment still waits to be played on. Cars still drive by, dogs still bark. But I am different. I know now I am standing on top of a cave. I know now there is a whole world and ordered ecosystem below me, with life and animals and formations existing just to exist. I know now there is more than what can be seen from our limited experience and perspective.
If it is true underground, maybe above and around there is also greater possibility than we can imagine.
__Want to go caving?__
During the spring, summer and fall, you can explore one of Perry County's 700 caves in beginning, intermediate and advanced caving courses taught by the Semo Grotto. The beginning wild cave exploration adventure includes a course prior to the excursion. For more information, contact the Perry Park Center at (573) 547-7275 or visit the "Events" page of their website, www.cityofperryville.com/583/Perry-Park-Center.
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