Caving

I like caving at night, or planning a trip so that we emerge from the cave after dark.  It’s not that I really enjoy a dangerous hike by night down the side of the canyon wall back to the trail, but I love the darkness of night after cave darkness.  looking out of the cave entrance while leaving can be a blinding experience by day.  At night, it’s almost like crawling into another, vastly larger room of the cave.  The amount of light the stars produce isn’t blinding like the sun, but welcoming, twinkling, they illuminate everything around.  Unlike the world underground, everything is lit in low light.  The canyon is great because it holds pockets of pure dark, not as far as the underground passages you’re leaving, just pockets, doorways of darkness, that I march past on my way out of the canyon.  I used to be afraid of the dark.  Now, that I have been underground, and have rested, and in places moved in total cave darkness, I take comfort in the darkness.  Now I still wear my head light all the way back to the car, but I’m outside, in the dark, and the darkness of night is nothing but welcoming after cave darkness.

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