Picture an ancient treasure map laid before you, so faded and brittle that you dare not even breathe over it. Can you imagine the excitement of wondering if the ‘X' still marks the placement of an old chest of gold and jewels?

This is just the sort of feeling Rebecca and I got when we heard that a friend of ours owns land rumored to hold the Lost Caves.

After moving to her land, our friend was able to meet many of the people – quite a few now in nursing homes – who grew up in the area. These people described a valley where they used to fish, climb trees, and explore caves.
                                                                                                                  Exploring along the cliff-edge.
“Caves?” I asked.

Caves are one of our obsessions, and the opportunity to venture into a relatively unexplored system sent Rebecca and I into a frenzy of excitement. Unfortunately, Rebecca would have to experience this adventure vicariously, since the injuries sustained from her horse accident are still not healed enough to allow her to navigate the terrain standing between ourselves and the Lost Caves.

We arrived at our friend’s, and she and Rebecca settled in for an afternoon of conversation and Rebecca’s first taste of real, European Absinthe. I geared up for cave exploration. Rather foolishly, Rebecca allowed me to take her camera with on my expedition. Not only am I completely inept at using it, but she was trusting me not to break her expensive piece of equipment.

First I had to cross a stream, hoping that the ice wouldn’t break underfoot. Then I traversed a wide expanse of pines and winter-brittle stalks of nettle and burdock. Finally, I arrived at the cliffs.

The stone face was riddled with holes and cracks and small cave-pockets. I did an initial survey of  the cliff faces, marking out the most likely cave entrances, and then sat down on a log to gear up for caving. That’s when I saw the tracks.

The tracks, scrawled in the toe-prints of both raccoon and fox, marked a well-worn trail. The raccoon’s trail went up the cliff-edge and along a narrow ledge. This was a clear indication of one thing – the raccoon’s home must be up along that ledge. And where would a raccoon live on the cliff-edge unless in a cave?

Carefully I unpacked Rebecca’s camera, intending to get an up-close and personal shot of the raccoon.  I extended the zoom lens, removed the lens cap, and began picking my way up toward the ledge, one hand gripping the camera as the other tried to find purchase on roots or bare stone. When I gained the ledge, I began to inch along it. I made it about twenty feet along the length before I came to an even narrower section, covered in ice and just wide enough for a raccoon. Sheer cliff rose to my left, and then dropped away again to my right, down into boulders and snow.

I paused. This is where the remainder of the story would see me edge out onto this crossing, slip on the ice, and tumble down the cliff face. I would be fine – I always seem to survive such falls relatively unscathed -- but Rebecca’s camera would be lying in pieces around my sprawled body. I desperately wanted the picture – I was envisioning coming to the cave’s entrance and meeting the raccoon face-to-face, leaving me with a fabulous portrait of a very surprised Procyonid. But as I imagined handing Rebecca the fourteen separate pieces of her Nikon while I tried to ensure her that I could ‘put it back together’, I realized there was only one sensible choice.

I turned back.

From my gear-bag I took my adventuring camera – an old Kodak Easy-Share that has been up trees, underground, and followed me on hundreds of adventures. Then I re-navigated the cliff, crawled once again along the ledge, nearly fell as I crossed the afore-mentioned narrow section, and approached the small cave I saw just ahead. That’s when my raccoon growled.

                                             A stream to cross.
A raccoon growl is a special thing. It is something you feel more than hear, as if it’s vibrating in your bones. Though I realized that I was probably about to get my face mauled off, I readied my camera and peeked around the edge of the cave.

I didn’t get my picture. It was a small cave – too small for my body – and the raccoon had retreated further back, so that all the evidence I had of its presence was a tuft of fur and another growl.

Reluctantly I left. For another hour or so I explored the cliffs, pocket-caves, and cracks, searching for the Lost Caves. But they did not reveal themselves.

As darkness moved over the valley, I headed for home.

The Lost Caves are still out there somewhere, waiting quietly in the hollow of a cliff’s overhang or yawning open from one of the valley’s many rock outcroppings.  Soon I'll return -- next time Rebecca should be able to come along with me.

This sort of adventure is what’s missing in most of our adult lives. We have vague memories of the wonders of childhood, when the whole world was bright and mysterious. It’s easy, as we grow up, to forget those feelings and dismiss them as foolish or sentimental. But that feeling of wonder is our birthright, if only we venture out from the confines of our comfortable lives.

The real treasure doesn’t lie in winning a video game or earning a certain amount of money – it lies in the vibrancy of our senses when we feel the morning wind whispering a promise of rain, when we trace an oak’s bark with our fingertip, or feel the sharp bite of wild pepper-grass on our tongue. It’s in conversations with friends, in the rising sparks of a campfire, and in our sense of curiosity when we wonder what is living in an old mossy log.

Happy Adventures!

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