Caving in Southern AZ

Chris from the Arizona Hiking Shack
at the top of a climb

Caving is a strange activity. We are creatures of comfort, creatures of light. Everyone, I don't care how tough you are now, we all were terrified of the dark when we were little and there's probably a good reason that instinct exists. Plus it's humid, tight, rough, and absolutely exhausting to travel through any cave, and the best ones doubly so. And yet we do it. Yesterday a few of us, friends and employees of the Arizona Hiking Shack and Desert Voyagers, went digging deep to see what kind of adventure we could find in the deep places of the earth.

Now mind you, I am not as young as I once was. Sure I caved somewhat regularly a decade ago but I am 25lbs heavier now. That and spending the last year paddling and guiding people on the river often is great for general fitness, but does nothing for the flexibility and full body strength required for such pursuits. If you have never been, imagine those tube style jungle gyms at McDonald's or other places. You know, the ones kids can spend all day crawling though... Now image that those tubes get smaller, they are jagged, rough, have unprotected 100 foot drops, and just for fun, have someone smear slick mud all over the place. You can see a bit of scale in the picture just above. Keep in mind that is a huge, wide open space though. There simply isn't room enough to get out my camera in the squeezes.

Lunch, thank god at least the bread is clean!

What am I trying to say?
Caving. Is. Amazing.
Sure it might be going to hell and back to get through the rough stuff. It might have rained on us the entire drive down, the hike to the mouth, we sweated buckets in the internal humidity, and more rain all night in camp through the next morning packing up. But there is nothing else on earth like it. The alien world humbles you, makes you get down on your knees (all too often literally), and forces you to understand that you can only work with what's in front of you.

I know I might sound a little cliched with that, but too often we take for granted just what we have around us. I went on the trip with a plan to photograph and for no other purpose then that. I didn't get to the part of the cave I was working towards and I don't have the shots I planned. I was disappointed going to sleep the other night, but then this all hit me. Work with what you have, see what you can see and don't worry about turning back. We get people coming in all the time asking what is there to do in Arizona (and no, not all are even new here). There are more than 1600 known caves throughout the state. Even I did not know that. There are 4 running rivers, 29 state parks, 27 national parks, monuments or wildlife refuges, and part or all of 3 huge through-hikes. If an old fat guy like me can keep up with those two guys above, what about you? Oh yeah, and don't forget about the crazy cool photography along the way.