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From Amy Johns, Membership Assistant:

I love the outdoors. That in itself is not unusual. You hear that phrase a lot in Williamstown from Williams College students, Tripod employees, and life-long residents alike. All outdoor enthusiasts have their favorite pastimes — be it hiking, biking, backpacking, skiing, kayaking, or camping. Anyone who spends time in Williamstown will hear stories about that death-defying bike ride or that great ski run. I want to tell you a story about one of my pastimes which raises a few eyebrows, even among the outdoor crowd. I like crawling around through tiny holes in the ground and getting cold, wet, muddy, and bruised. I like to go caving.

There's a cave about two hours from Williamstown that I've been going to since my first year at Williams. This past January, I went as the leader of a group for the first time. I took two friends who had never been caving before. I confidently outlined a list of clothing and equipment they would need. I wanted to make sure we were prepared for the worst that could happen — from having our headlamps go out to getting hypothermia. We set off in the early afternoon and made it to the cave with only a few small glitches.

When we arrived at the entrance to the cave, my friends were a bit skeptical. The entrance did not look big enough for a person to squeeze through. One of the first things you learn when you start caving is just how small a hole a full-grown human being can fit through. I cheerfully reassured them, and told them that they would be crawling through much smaller spaces than the entrance. We headed in. The entrance tunnel continued down at a forty-five degree slope for about twenty feet. I entered the large room near the entrance first and waited for my friends. Once they arrived and had a few moments to look around, we turned off our headlamps.

That period of complete darkness is one of the reasons I go caving. There are few opportunities in our world to experience it. Our towns are dotted with street lamps, and nights in the wilderness are lit by the moon and stars. After a moment of straining almost involuntarily to catch the tiniest bit of light, I noticed how quickly my other senses picked up the slack. Suddenly the chamber seemed filled by the sound of our breathing, and I noticed the dampness of the air. In the distance, I could hear the noise of the subterranean stream I knew awaited us.

We turned our headlamps back on and started down the main passage of the cave. We had to wade through the stream for most of the length of the passage. Let me tell you, cave water is cold like no other water. It has never seen the light of day, and doesn't get to benefit from the warmth of the sun. At times, the stream was only a few inches deep and the roof of the passage was at least five feet overhead. At other times, the stream was mid-thigh and the ceiling was only about a foot and a half above the water. We walked doubled over with our backs against the ceiling and our faces barely above the surface of the stream. We explored little side passages, looked at fossils in the walls and ceiling, and saw a bat. Eventually, we reached the end of the main passage and headed toward the sections of the cave known as the "Snake" and the "Chest Compressor"; so named because the passages are twisty and small enough to require belly crawling. This was where I first learned just how small a passage I could wriggle through.

Before we reached that area, we had heard what sounded like singing. Sounds in a cave are distorted at best. The nearby sounds of our sloshing through the stream and talking made me think that I must have imagined the singing. We stopped and waited. Then we clearly heard the sound of a deep voice singing, though it was impossible to hear any words. It was one of the eeriest sounds I've ever heard. Several images ran through my head. First, I saw that moment in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when they first peek into the huge subterranean chamber where the Evil Priest was chanting. Next, I imagined something akin to the scene in The Hobbit when Bilbo first enters the chamber of the dragon Smaug.

I was more than a bit spooked by the sound, but one of my friends, Allegra, wasn't phased in the least. She said something like, "Wow! That sounds really cool!" and started to sing back. We continued walking back down the main passage with Allegra and The Voice alternating, her alto following its bass.

The scene started to take on an even more surreal feeling when I began to lose my bearings. I knew that the passage I was looking for was in the general area, but I wasn't finding it. We got closer and closer to The Voice, and I started to think that we had passed the tunnel we wanted. I turned to look back, trying to figure out where we were, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. There in a little side passage, huddled up in a shadow, was an old man. He had his back to us, and I was all in favor of leaving him alone, but Allegra greeted him. He wasn't very talkative, and what he did say didn't make much sense. He did point us in the direction of the Snake, and we headed off.

The Snake and the Chest Compressor were by far the most physically and mentally challenging part of the cave. By the end of the Compressor, I had pretty much forgotten about the man and his singing. The exit of the cave was a ten-foot chimney, requiring a final bit of rock climbing. By that point, we were completely covered in mud from crawling on our stomachs through a mud-lined tunnel, bruised from contact with the hard, rock floor, and bone-tired from the exertion. Our trip home was another adventure that I won't go into. We made it back to Williamstown safe and mostly sound. I took another group to that cave in mid-April, and didn't see any sign of the singing man. Spending time in a cave can feel like being in another world. My active imagination saw the man as just another piece of that world: A world of darkness, bitingly cold water, and distorted sound; of bats, fossils, and mist.

— Amy

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