Carefully crawling

The Independent

CARTER CAVES STATE RESORT PARK - It's muddy. Bats and crickets adorn the ceiling and crawling on hands and knees or toes and elbows is the prevalent mode of transportation.

While it might not sound like fun to most people, for the more than 600 participants who gathered at Carter Caves State Resort Park over the weekend for the 25th annual crawlathon it's just that.

For three days, the lodge at the park was a fashion show of helmets, headlamps and coveralls in every shade and pattern as both avid and beginner cavers gathered to explore what is beneath Carter County.

The event offered guided trips ranging from commercial tours for the simply curious to five-hour underground odysseys for the experienced and extremely adventurous.

The diverse range of activities draws in individuals ranging from those like Rick Falconer of Pittsburgh, an avid caver and vice chairman of the Pittsburgh Grotto to those like Gary and Kasey Warnock, of Flatwoods, who had heard about crawlathon for years and decided finally to try some caving themselves.

Others like Chad and Jennifer Nunley, Anderson, Ind., are sort of in the middle. While they don't do much caving during the rest of the year, the crawlathon has become a yearly family tradition not to be missed.

Every year, the couple make the more than five hour trip with close friends and members of their extended family. This year their group consisted of nine others including their son, 7-year-old Camden Nunley, who was getting his first real taste of caving.

Chad Nunley and his friend, Jared Taylor, began the tradition when they first traveled to the yearly event in 1989 on a high school trip. After graduation, the pair continued to come, each year bringing an entourage of friends and family to experience the event themselves.

Although some years the group has done higher level trips, this year it stuck to level two trips, which require extended crawling through constricted areas but are shorter than higher level trips.

Clad in duct-tapped rubber boots, helmet and headlamp, Camden may have been the youngest caver on both of the outings the group went on Saturday but he was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic. His excitement was visible as he climbed over rocks and splashed in puddles, his parents struggling at times to keep him with the group and out of deeper water. “Where? Where?” he would call whenever someone pointed out a bat or cave cricket.

“I've never seen a cave like this before,” he exclaimed in Cascade Cave as the group exited the cave along a stream and prepared to go into another cave.

And in places that were often uncomfortably tight squeezes for others inside Bat Cave, Camden slipped through effortlessly. At one point when the adults in the group were carefully crawling on hands and knees over a series of rim stone dams, he continued walking barely having to duck his head, and very innocently pointed out the benefit of his size to the laboring adults at his side.

Jessica Pauge, 19, a cousin of the Nunleys, said it was her fourth crawlathon. Pauge is a freshman at Indiana University but decided she didn't want to miss the weekend. “I think its a neat experience,” she said, “it's definitely something I don't get to do any other time.”

For many others, crawlathon is also a cherished yearly tradition. David Justice and his wife, Susan, of Demossville, have been coming to the park for about 10 years but only discovered caving and the crawlathon about four years ago.

“I wish I had discovered this a while ago,” Justice said as he and his wife emerged from a tunnel they had been exploring themselves on the Cascades Gone Wild trip, “This is just neat.”

Casey Dec of Cleveland shared that sentiment. Dec said he only discovered caving 10 months ago, but likes it so much he's been doing as much of it as he can. Clearly having caught caving fever, he rambled on about caves he's been to in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, including one he got lost in for more than an hour.

Justice said he was surprised at how many turn out for the event each year. “When we first came down four years ago we expected a couple hundred people,” he said, instead they found more than 500.

This year, park officials estimate close to 600 turned out in addition to 125 volunteer guides who came from as far away as Colorado, Florida and California to lead trips.

Indeed, the crawlathon has grown over its 25-year history. Guide Sam Plummer, who led a 1:00 p.m. trip Saturday of about 20 cavers into Bat Cave - including the Nunley group - said the event started with about 45. Since then, he said it's continued to grow, with the largest crowd reaching 700 several years ago.

“We're a strange breed of people,” Cindy Duncan, of Ironton, a volunteer whose guided crawlathon trips for about 15 years said, “but it's fun.”

“It's pretty,” she added, saying she often has trouble explaining to others the beauty hidden in the depths of caves. But judging by the events growing popularity - the message isn't just echoing through empty caverns- others are indeed hearing the call to crawl.

CARRIE KIRSCHNER can be reached at ckirschner@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.

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