Cave Crawling

So there I was...filthy from head to toe and wedged in a hole wondering if I was going to see the light of day again.  It all happened several years ago when some casual friends of mine said they did some caving and that I was welcome to come along.  Always ready to jump at the opportunity to try something new and risky, I met them at the break of dawn one Saturday morning.  They had all the equipment I would need and told me to wear clothes I wouldn't mind throwing away.  After donning helmet, gloves, multiple lights, headlamp, food and water we slipped into a small hole in the ground located in a wooded area where I immediately felt the temperature drop to about 55 degrees, down 25 degrees from the outside summer day.  As we made our way deeper into the earth there were narrow tunnels that required you to lay on your back and move yourself forward by walking with your shoulder blades through the mud and bat droppings while you studied the hanging bats just inches from your face at times.  There were small streams moving through parts of the cave and here is where I first saw a blind salamander.  Having no use for eyes in the pitch black environment its body had adapted and though you could see where the eyes used to be it was now just skinned over.  There was a circular room we came to that was about 8 feet across that was formed from some sort of whirlpool that had etched it away showing several layers of different colored rock.  It was here sitting on a ledge that we stopped for lunch and turned off our lights for the first time.  I have never seen blackness to that degree before.  Even after allowing time for your eyes to adjust you still could not see anything and I then realized why the necessity for redundancy  and variation of our many lights.  With so many turns, branches and levels of a cave, if you lost all light there is little chance of finding your way back out.  Speaking of levels, we were having to drop through a hole to enter another level of the cave when I, as the largest person there, got stuck and instead of stopping to think this through I impatiently pushed harder getting myself seriously stuck.  The other two cavers were already through the hole so there was nobody above me to pull me up.  It was decided that I would breath every bit of air out of my lungs, contracting my chest cavity, while the others would pull from the bottom.  With a great tug I popped through to the lower level like a cork.  We found another way back.  We emerged from the cave, six hours after entering, dirty, tired and happy to see the sun.