Blanchard Springs Wild Cave Tour

My heart thundered in my chest as I descended a boulder, clinging to a rope and sliding in a clumsy crabwalk into what our guide called the Little Grand Canyon. In the light of our headlamps, we could glimpse the subterranean river that ran through the cavern just ahead. Eventually, it would emerge through the rock and into the daylight as Blanchard Springs, a picturesque waterfall in the Ozarks of Arkansas.

Not good with heights, I imagined tumbling down the rock into the water below. Even worse was imagining my kids falling.

“Alright! Next we’re going to climb up the other side of the Little Grand Canyon,” our guide casually explained when we had all reached the bottom safely. I sized up the obstacle. From where I stood at the bottom, the cave wall looked monstrous and sheer–at least 100 feet high–with a narrow opening at the top. What had we gotten ourselves into? Was this even possible? I had expected a wild cave tour to be like Ape Cave at Mt Saint Helens–climbing over boulders and an occasional scramble up a lava falls aided by a rope. This was something else entirely.

We picked our way past the rocky base of the cave wall until we reached a ledge. Our guide spotted each of us as we shimmied sideways across the ledge. I trembled as I waited, trying not to look at how far I could slide if I took a wrong step, reminding myself the guide would catch me if I did. Still, I was shaking so badly as I shuffled across, gripping the rock wherever I could, that I was surprised my legs were holding me up.

Relief at getting past the ledge was short lived. The last section of wall was smooth and steep. Footholds were carved into it, but I mostly used my hands, padded knees and feet to brace myself up the slope, trying not to imagine sliding back down the entire wall. My younger daughter was ahead of me. Too short to be able to reach the footholds, her feet slipped on the smooth rock. I used my hands to give her a boost.

“You’re doing great! You’ve got this!” I called up to her. Using my entire body and grit I didn’t realize I had, I managed to follow my daughter and pull myself up over the summit. We made it!

I had optimistically thought that reaching the top would also be the end to my adrenaline rush, but I was wrong. At almost every turn, pits seemed to drop away into dark nothingness. One pit had a narrow ledge next to it that we needed to surmount. At the first pit, I was tempted to turn back. Heights were bad enough when I could see the bottom. “How will my kids do?” I couldn’t stop worrying. But the guide had said the worst–that cliff wall–was behind us, and how could I teach my kids to have courage in the face of fear if I gave up? So on I went.

When our guide told us our next stop was the Death Ledge, an enormous chasm 150 feet deep, I jokingly renamed it Fluffy Unicorn Ledge to make it sound less ominous. We turned our lights off there and listened to the darkness. The cave sounded alive, like people conversing in the distance.

After the massive columns of the Titan Room and a little snack, my adrenaline began to calm. I was unphased when we needed to slide our feet sideways along a ledge, wedging our hands into a crack and making them into fists to hold ourselves to the cliff face. The Ham Sandwich, where we scooted on our stomachs through a 12 inch opening, was downright fun.

Eventually, we made it back to that first wall, the Little Grand Canyon, through a route that emerged halfway down. I didn’t shake as much going back across the ledge. And it turned out that sliding was exactly the right way to get down the wall. I waited for my turn to use what resembled a theme park water slide, worn dark and smooth by all those who had preceded me down it. What I had feared on the way up was quite fun on the way down.

We took the scenic route getting out of the caves, past tour groups in the well-lit, dramatic caverns whose guides pointed out us wild cavers like you would rock stars. We had been underground for six hours, but underground, time lost all meaning. We were exhausted but filled with that sense of accomplishment that comes from testing ourselves and discovering we could do more than we ever thought possible. I had a new respect for my children, for myself, and for what we were capable of working together. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

This post, minus minor edits, can also be found at recreation.gov.