Squeezing in to a hidden world
For the average caver, the opportunity to explore unique environments trumps difficult conditions and other risks
In a cave, finding yourself between a rock and a hard place may just save your life.
“You can’t make a mistake here,” veteran caver Gary Yankech tells me as I struggle to find my footing above a 20-foot fissure. “Because you will fall.”
Uncurling my limbs into the darkness, I inch upwards in a deranged spiritual climb to overcome fear and conquer a cave.
I followed five members of the Toronto Caving Group into the side of a cliff known only as Rattlesnake Point Cave One.
Leading the way wearing a half-buttoned up gray jumpsuit is Kirk MacGregor, the group’s 69-year-old president and resident cave expert.
An entrance overlooks the Niagara Escarpment and lies just a few feet from the colour-coded trails of Halton Conservation Park. Patches of poison ivy, solomon seal and goldenrod line the narrow opening, a crack only slightly wider than a shoulder width.
Categorized as a crevice cave, the underground passage cracked open when bedrock beneath the cliff’s surface split and pulled away.
MacGregor, who has been caving for almost 50 years, is barking orders when I slide in feet first.
“No, no, don’t go wandering off, people,” he says while navigating the cramped channel like a monkey at a jungle gym. “No single cave is the same; it’s different on the way in and different on the way out.”
Despite this cave’s reputation as beginner-friendly, it is still an easy place to become lost quickly. Unmarked intersections of horizontal and vertical passages can overwhelm, especially when there are hardly any recognizable landmarks.
Throw in the lack of cellphone reception, combined with some wolf spiders, and you have yourself one seriously terrifying situation.
Yet, losing your footing and plunging to the cave’s depths remains the largest risk. None of the cavers is tethered to the surface, or in fact anything at all.
“Technically, there is (a) real danger of falling,” Yankech, 42, the group’s equipment manager, says afterwards. “The walls on the cave sometimes can get wet from condensation or seepage from above, (and) rocks, soil, or leaf litter may come loose from footholds.”
“Claustrophobia, dehydration, and fatigue could also become problematic, but knowing your limitations and not putting yourself in these situations helps prevent accidents.”
But for the average caver, a yearning to explore and appetite for a physically demanding challenge trumps the risk of injury or death.
“The odd person has gotten unlucky,” MacGregor says, his headlamp washing over the walls in a pale light. He identifies a glistening stone face that appears to be melting. “That’s flowstone,” he says. “You can practice not touching it. “Remember to save the cave.” Cave conservation, an unwritten code of conduct among the caving community, means leaving an area as they found it.
“Caves are low-energy environments that self-repair slowly,” he adds. “So if something looks interesting, don’t touch it.”
A conservationist at heart, the silver-haired MacGregor founded the Toronto Caving Group in 1967.
Since then, roughly 80 members have joined, eager to survey, map, and photograph or simply explore what lies beneath across the Ontario, Quebec, as well as New York and West Virginia in the U.S.
The group figures about 400 caves exist in and around Ontario.
Back inside Rattlesnake Point Cave One, the temperature rests at a cool 15 degrees.
Up ahead, Kirk navigates yet another fissure as if it was his second home. He begins to chimney, an exercise not exclusively reserved for good ol’ St. Nick. Instead, it’s a technique used by cavers that involves purposely wedging themselves between two parallel rock walls. The pressure pre- vents a climber from falling, making it possible to cross a crevice safely.
Meanwhile, beads of sweat flow down my face as I crawl on all fours towards the exit.
Stretching my arms outward into the darkness, I make out a rather large but faint outline of a chalkstone boulder hanging above my head. My gut instinct is to ask Kirk half-jokingly what the likelihood is of it falling on me.
“Well, this entire cave will eventually collapse,” he replies. “But I don’t know the exact schedule.”
I emerge muddied, smudged and with a tear in my shirt.
A caveman, yet not one intending to revisit the sunless dome beneath my feet. Newcomers are invited to give caving a try. Details about the beginner outings hosted by the Toronto Caving Group are at www.orbonline.net/~tcg