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A
3 Year Old's intro to Caving
A little over a week ago
I took the assistant manager of Moaning Cavern wild caving, and while we were talking
about future cave trips, she mentioned to me the complications of being a single
mother and trying to squeeze time for work, caving, and time with her son into her
busy schedule. So I asked her, "Why don`t you just take him with you caving?"
Her answer was... "Well, he is only three and a half years old"... and
I replied, "So what?" ..... My first wild cave trip was with my dad to
the Grapevine area caves when I was four, and both my kids started out at the Rockpile
and the Grapevine caves as well... when "they" were only four and five
years old !!!
The
next Friday afternoon... when I got home from work... my daughter told me that our
latest "caving convert" had called... and she wanted me to call her back.
She informed me that she wanted to go caving the next day,... because she had a rare
Saturday off from work. (Bruce, you just gotta schedule a day off for yourself too...)
But... she said there was a problem, because she had no baby sitter for her son.
I told her that this would be the perfect time to take her son on his first wild
caving trip!. Saturday started off very warm, which made me a little nervous about
taking a three year old on the hike to the caves, but I figured if nothing else I
could give him a piggy back ride if he got tired. Meeting at Moaning Cavern, we headed
for the Grapevine parking area, and were walking to the caves by 10:30AM. The "little
guy" walked almost all the way (it turns out he doesn't like piggy back rides)
as he is scared of someone dropping him so we took our time and walked at his pace.
The first cave we entered
was Bobcat Cave. The "little guy" was a some what reluctant at first ,
but after I showed him some frogs in the entrance he quickly was excited to see what
else the caves might be hiding. Luckily this was going to turn out to be a very productive
"Critter" finding trip. Every cave we explored had large 5 to 6 inch millepedes
and several newts and salamanders and frogs in them. He kept me entertained by watching
the fun he had, crawling through the small passages and discovering new "Critters"
throughout the caves. I was very impressed by his enthusiasm in exploring the caves,
he was never scared to go through any passages by himself and had fantastic self
control to not touch or play with any of the "Critters" we came across...
and believe me, he wanted to! On the hike out he seemed to like the idea of piggy
back rides alot better, but was still a trooper and hiked half way out on his own.
We were back at Moaning Cavern by 4:30PM. (BTW, "Critters" is the little
guy's name for any "cool" animal he finds)
Footnote: This
youngster, and others like him, are the future of our sport or hobby (which ever
you consider it) and if we can get these kids in any cave at a young age, and start
to impress safe caving, along with the do's and don'ts of caving upon them, then
maybe our great grand kids and many more generations to come will be able to enjoy
the caves as we and others before have. So take a kid caving! With proper guidance
they can enjoy the underground world as we do.
Mike
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