Close Encounter With a Waterfall

Caving will help you build resilience and strength on every level but could also potentially kill you...my almost near death experience caving in a wet multi-drop in the heart of TAG

Last Saturday I had a very close encounter with death and it made me super grateful to be alive. How did this happen? Well, it all started in this crazy cave in the middle of nowhere. Just to be clear, cavers who do this type of thing are a bit insane…reckless but as safe as you can be for putting your life in danger.

A group of seven of us met literally in the middle of nowhere in Alabama, only found by GPS coordinates and then finished by a trek of back country road driving through some mud to arrive in the middle of the woods to begin our adventure. The first part is always getting the gear ready and making sure everyone has plenty of layers. It was January so the temperatures that day were cold, only 27 degrees. The next step was to find the cave and that can prove to be tricky. You follow GPS coordinates and know that it’s maybe a half mile hike, through the woods, to find a spot where a bunch of rocks gather near the ridge line. It’s always a trek and a bit of a search to find the cave. None of us in this group had been to this cave and it would be the first time my husband led and rigged a caving trip.

After about 30 minutes of hiking someone found the cave and signaled the group to the entrance. The pit was big and open, which is pretty, but for me, a little scarier. Honestly when it’s just a tiny hole in the ground I feel better, because I can’t tell what’s about to happen. Now a big open air pit elicits fear and is something I overcome and work with every time I get to an edge.

Cave Lingo

This cave was a wet multi waterfall drop, which means that there were six pits that you vertically repelled or dropped into, and four of those were in waterfalls. It had also just rained heavily, so the water was raging. Again, it was only 27 degrees outside and so that water running through the cave was ICE cold. This type of caving trip was serious and meant that we had to dress for warmth and safety. We all geared up and I wore a full body wet suit, a cave suit, knee pads, a helmet and two lights, gloves, and of course a harness and vertical gear. I looked and felt like a blue oompah-loompah but I was going to be warm in that cave! When you are plunging into water and waiting around, you need to stay warm or this little thing called hypothermia might start to occur.

My husband rigged the top and felt confident and we started our trip at 1 p.m. I went down second and waited for the others to come down. While sitting and looking up we noticed that one of the cavers started to repel and then stopped and went back up. It turned out she didn’t feel confident in going on the trip and was going to sit it out. It is so important to listen to your intuition, in your every day life, and especially in caving. Instinct is your survival. It’s a good thing she didn’t come because that cave got cold and she would have been on the brink of a serious situation since she tended towards coldness. This meant two less people were on our trip and in the end this was better because it takes a long time for 5 people to repel, traverse, and then climb out of 350 feet of cave!

The Journey

The trip overall went smoothly and each repel was different. The first two were not in water and one was 80 feet and then 97 feet. Once we got to the water repels I realized how serious this cave was. It was stunningly beautiful and one of my favorite things about caves is how the water shapes the rock. Everything is so pristine and clear and very alien. Since the water was up the waterfalls were raging and it was crazy to repel into them. I was tested each time, it’s always a little scary to step or leap off the edge and into icy cold water.

By the time we’d done 5 repels we’d been in the cave for hours. We knew the last drop was coming up but before that we encountered an area that normally would be easy to traverse without extra help from a rope, but because the water was high, it was sketchy. My husband and another guy decided to go up ahead to see the last drop because they weren’t scared to climb high on rocks. I stayed behind with two others, who decided to rig a traverse line in order to get down a mini waterfall. I felt uneasy and my intuition told me I should stay behind and just rest. We had a long way to go to get out of the cave. The others rigged the line and decided to go and I was cold and didn’t want to sit there alone so I also decided to go.

I Went Against My Intuition…

When I got on rope and started repelling I discovered the other two people didn’t even wait for me at the bottom. This was not typical. That made me feel uneasy and then I couldn’t get out of my rack at the bottom. So I was getting pounded with water and tried to step to the side. I waited for a minute or two and luckily my husband came around the corner. He was surprised to see me there and helped me get unstuck. I was feeling irritated and said I didn’t want to see the last drop, I just wanted to get away from the water. He told me the last drop was not safe to repel and that the water would crush us all. So that meant I had to climb up the rope I just repelled down.

I started climbing and the water was raging and my gear just wasn’t working well. My rack wouldn’t feed and I was getting pounded with the water, almost waterboarded. Imagine standing under a giant waterfall and then trying to climb up, it’s really hard. It was so hard to climb and I became filled with fear and panic. My primal brain overtook me and all it knew was that I was in a state of threat and needed to get out fast. This didn’t help me and I was struggling to logically plan each move. I was scrambling and screaming and crying and just getting crushed by the water. I wasn’t sure I could make it and my husband tried to help. There’s only so much he could do without hurting himself. I only had to climb 15 feet but that was the hardest climb I’ve ever done. I had to dig deep within myself and find some clarity and push myself. Literally I used all of my muscles to shove myself up. I finally made it to the top and then found a calm spot to sit. I started sobbing and was racked with adrenaline, other chemicals, and tears. My husband consoled me and I ate some food and drank some water. The others came back and we decided it was time to start the trek out of the cave. I didn’t overly talk about my traumatic experience because I knew we had a long way to go and I needed a positive mindset to safely get out.

The Trek Out

With five people on the trip it was going to take a while to get out of the cave, so it was decided that myself and another woman would keep moving. I needed to keep moving because my body was shaking due to cold and shock and was getting closer to the line of developing hypothermia. I had to do Kapalabhati breathing to stimulate heat and fire in my body and keep a running mantra of “I can do this” going. After that horrible waterfall experience I still had to climb up three other waterfalls. I wasn’t being pummeled by them but there were small difficulties in each of them. Because I was tired and had exerted so much extra energy with the previous experience, I was prone to making mistakes. This really wasn’t a good place to be in. I had to keep clearing my head, doing lots of deep breathing, and mentally stabilizing myself. We finally made it out of the water and started the longer climbs out.

Now for those who don’t know what it takes to climb out of a cave…well…it’s basically reaching up high with an ascender with your left hand and then taking a lunge step with your legs…hundreds of times. We had plunged over 350 feet into the earth and now had to climb out. Those last two climbs were so fucking hard. I exerted every physical bit of energy in my body, my mind, and my psyche. I was pushed to my depths and limits and just needed to get out of that cave. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of putting on dry clothes, eating food, and being above ground.

Out of the cave but not done yet….

By the time I made it out of the cave it was 7:30 p.m. We had been in the cave for six hours and we still had to wait for the others to climb out and then hike back to the car. Luckily all I cared about was getting in dry clothes and eating more food. I had gathered sticks earlier and we started a fire. This helped greatly and being dry, stabilizing with food, and feeling warmth went a long way towards me having the capability to keep pushing. Everyone climbed out by 8:30 p.m. and then it took another hour for us to get our gear together to leave. The hike out was going to be hard and again we just followed a dot on the map to where our vehicles were.

The hike was essentially uphill the entire time and we were all beat down. That’s the hardest part of caving. You do this crazy thing for hours and then sometimes have to still hike...too far. Needless to say it took a while to make it back to the cars but we made it and I felt so relieved. I immediately sat down in the car, with the heat blasting, ate some bacon leftover from earlier, and drank more water. I was safe. I was alive. I had the butt warmer on and all was well. We had over an hour drive to the cabin we were staying at and didn’t make it back until 11:30 p.m. Everyone else at the cabin had started to get worried and luckily we got service in enough time to tell them we were ok. In the caving world you make sure to tell people where you are going and give a call out time. This means that if no one hears from you at that time, they should call for help. This has never happened in my experience and I truly hope it never does. To rescue someone from a cave could take hundreds of people and would be dramatic and traumatic.

What I Learned

What I learned from this cave is that I need to know my limits. This cave was beyond my stamina level. I did it, but I don’t want to do this cave again. I think that my max caving time would be 6-8 hours. Not 9-11+ hours. I also didn’t trust my intuition. Something told me not to go, but I did. I also believe I needed to have that experience so that I could respect the power of water, understand the value of my life, and realize that caving is dangerous. A friend asked me if I am willing to die caving after that experience. I guess I am saying I am ok with that by going caving, but honestly, I do not want to die in a cave. We have no control over this aspect of our lives and could die driving or doing anything, but choosing to do something dangerous does put you closer to death. All I know is that I’m so grateful to be alive and I was sore as hell after that. It was a wild adventure and I respect the cave, the water, myself, my limits, and am so grateful for the support from all who I caved with. Cavers are supportive and good, insane people. Gotta find your tribe :)