Portrait compliments of my eight year old.
Bryan and I head out for our first spelunking adventure to Rat's Nest cave near Canmore.
The bushy tailed wood rat, a type of pack rat, carries prehistoric animal bones dating to over 3,000 years ago around the vast 12 km (so far explored) cave network.
We slide our way down the entrance.
Once down the chute, we log roll and squeeze through various parts of the cave.
The grotto is as far as we descend. The formations here accumulate at only 1 cm per 100 years.
Bryan does the challenge squeeze, emerging from the pitch black after a solid effort. It is so narrow you need to stretch one arm forward and one arm back or else your shoulders will get stuck.
I was surprised to realize I had to turn my head sideways to avoid wedging my chin against limestone at various points. It was a good exercise in mental control to be in a very small space with 8 other people in the blackness far underground and to have the exit blocked by someone who got stuck (or temporarily immobilized as the guides like to say). Realizing that there is no immediate threat but only imaginings of what might be helped to calm my heart rate a bit. Plus, everything was fine and it feels amazing to have explored somewhere I did not even know existed so near to home.
