I'd been in the cave for four hours. It took that long to crawl, rappel, and climb my way through thousands of feet of passage and burrow my way over 450 feet under the surface of the earth. And my husband and I move fast. Other cavers? Well it might take them six hours just to reach this far point, if they could even find it. I was sitting in one of the most difficult places to get to in the southeast, but I wasn't thinking about that. What I was thinking about was eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I plopped down on a big pile of sand, fished around in my ridiculously stuffed cave pack, and pulled out lunch.
I was in this deep southeastern cave not just for fun, but to look for cave life as part of a biological inventory. When I started the project, I didn't think I'd find anything interesting very far from the entrances. Boy, was I wrong. Caves, even though they're totally dark, have very few food sources, and are extremely difficult to access, feature a wonderful variety of life.You just have to look.
After lunch, we did some sightseeing. We started next to the slim strand of rope leading up into the darkness: our path back to the world of light. Walking down a sandy path, my headlamp glanced off of the ceiling 30 feet above my head. The light danced off of tiny water droplets clinging to the ceiling, creating the illusion of millions of tiny diamonds glinting in the dark. Giant chunks of soft gray limestone towered over our heads, arching softly to form a smooth domed ceiling to the long tunnel. We reached a stream meandering lazily through the immense passage. We had to clamber over giant chunks of limestone that has dislodged themselves from the walls or ceiling in eons past, and now were sentinels guarding the way. The water had carved delicate shapes in some of the blocks that were close to the water. As I climbed over the rocks, my fingers moved over thousands of tiny fossils. I love seeing fossils this far under the surface of the earth. They remind me that the rock I'm climbing over, rock that is 450 below the surface of the earth, were once living animals thriving in an ocean filled with life. My fingers linger over the crinoids and coral as I imagine that shallow sea under an ancient sun.
Steve pokes his head into a narrow canyon leading off the main stream. A trickle of water emerges from the slot in the wall, but we can hear the boom and rumble of falling water in the distance. I decide to check out some nooks and crannies near the floor and find something surprising. Near the sandy floor, tucked away in a tiny alcove, are spiders. They're tiny, about half the size of my pinkie. Their webs have no form, more like lazy cobwebs in the corner of an unused room. The spiders don't seem to be doing much. I blow on them, and they wiggle, climbing up their webs to escape the strange and gigantic intruder to their dark and quiet world. I am amazed that these spiders are here. We're not only far beneath the mountain, we're also at least a half mile from any known entrance. How do these spiders get nourishment? How do they live? What do they eat? They are living near the edge of a large bat colony. I wonder if bats bring enough organic matter into the cave to attract other types of cave life into this dark world. Perhaps there are tiny cracks that allow insects or other life to access the cave. It seems very mysterious to me. I collect one of the spiders to deliver to an insect expert. I do feel guilty killing a spider that is thriving in this remote world, but there are others to hopefully fill the void.
Steve and I continue on down the winding and narrow passage. The limestone surrounding us on both sides looks like the sand you see at the bottom of a fast moving river or shallow ocean. The rock is scalloped and sculpted as flowing water scooped out and carved the chunks of limestone. You can measure how quickly water used to flow over the rock by measuring the distance between the peaks of each tiny scalloped mark. Looking up, the passage towers over our heads so high that the far reaches remain inkily black. I hear water roaring. The sound of water crashing onto solid rock starts to penetrate not only my sense of hearing, but my sense of touch. I can feel the reverberations as I touch the limestone walls. The sound of water gets louder. I start to feel a strong wind pushing against my body; a fine mist coats my face. I emerge into a large room, a dome with a powerful stream of water pounding the boulders in the center of the room. We have to shout to hear each other over the continual, dull roar.
After spending a few minutes enjoying the waterfall, we turn around before we're we're soaked by the spray and head back on our mission of finding more cave life. We do find more this day. But the spiders remain the creatures that most intrigue me. Many months later, after a specialist has looked at them, I find out that this kind of spider is rare. It's blind, and is likely a new species. I wonder if all of the animals I find in such remote areas will be unique. After all, they've had so much time to evolve in such a remote home that they've likely changed to make the most of their environment.
Unfortunately, soon after this trip, this cave that I love so much was closed as a result of White Nose Syndrome. I'm hoping to have access to the cave again at some point in the future, especially since bats don't roost or hibernate in the parts of the cave we explore. But one thing that this project taught me is that the life you can find in caves extends way beyond just bats. Caves are home to a huge variety of life, and we should make an effort to understand all of the unique animals that call caves home.
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