Word: caves
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Many people who are thinking about taking the first trip, that "easy one," don't know exactly what the trip involves. Lots of tourists, driving through Virginia of Kentucky, have stopped to visit a commercial cave. For a fee, a guide takes you in over surfaced paths that wind around electrically-lit rock formations. You could get the impression that caving is much like that, but without the lights, crowds, or the admission charge--just wandering in awe through the crystalline depths of the earth...
...squeeze down into the fissure in the rocks the slot of daylight above your head narrows. Finally it blacks out completely, and only your lamp and the lamps in front of you light up the cave. But the muddy walls soak up what little glow there is, so that you can see clearly for only a dozen feet ahead. And the little circle of light shows up only dark brown on the walls and yellow in the puddles of slime. Beyond that, it's just black...
When you're in a big group, the moving lights and the sounds of other people talking can make the cave seem to be just a dark room. But when you get off by yourself, the darkness starts to close in. A drop of water splashing down from the ceiling puts out the lamp, and no night was ever this black. Deep down the cave echoes lowly to a distant river, somewhere below. A spot of limestone drips onto the floor. You can hear the cave growing, and it can scare...
Maybe you light a candle to find something familiar. You can't Rock is rock, but in a cave it assumes strange shapes -- hollow tubes or bursts of crystals. The fish in pools of water are eyeless and are nearly transparent. Brown bats, squeaking as they zip around you, are the most common animals. Often they carry rabies...
...many cavers, it's this gruesomely different kind of environment which makes the sport fascinating. In Ward's Cave, N.Y., one of the easiest, there may be as many as sixty people inside at one time, stumbling around each other. As soon as a new cave is discovered, the crowds head...