Life is short

When the news is depressing, with 260 dead in Southern U.S. states after tornadoes flattened cities, you can either hunker down and feel like Chicken Little that the sky is falling or you can do something "daring" to make you breath in life deeply . Choosing the later, we strapped on our hiking boots and got a little lost, dirty, sweaty and loved every minute of it.

About 30 minutes away from our house is Nimitz Hill. At the top, in the jungle, President Taft in 1910 had the military build a Dam over the Fonte River in order to send drinking water down to Hagatna, the capital of Guam. A group of 6 of us took the very windy scenic route trying to find this trail head marker to the Dam. It was hidden under the lush grasses and vines, and we did a lot of wandering and poking around before we found it.
A mile down we came to the top of the dam.

It was either do the "Romancing the Stone" move and slide down the vertical slope and hope for the best or take the trail down. We looked at the pretty red brick, made at a brick factory nearby at Libugon and contemplated it. But after Derick Boss, one of the teenagers, scraped up his whole side going down the Dam, we decided not to add our red blood to the brick and took the trail down.

We followed the Fonte River down stream and waded across several pools. Nan walked across this pool just fine, but Casey, the other teenager in our group, followed her and stepped in a hole and just disappeared underwater. I just played it safe and swam across.
We arrived at this 15 foot waterfall and jumped right in. The cold water felt fantastic after the sticky humidity and heat. Going down was easy-- it was climbing back up that was a bit tricky. (I have decided I need to build up my upper body strength to do all this fun rock climbing) We headed further downstream to a bigger waterfall. We needed ropes to get down this waterfall. So we sat and enjoyed the view, water rippling over rocks, and jungle chatter of birds. On our way out, we passed huge banana spiders and Guam "tarantulas." We didn't disturb them and they left us alone.

This is probably the cleanest we have ever returned from a hike.

Our next hike to the Southern end of the island to Talofofo caves, 5 caves in total, had many quaking in their boots. 3 of my friends wouldn't go for fear of snakes, bats and spiders. We joined up with the Navy MWR and found lots of brave souls ready for an adventure.
We hiked up a slippery hill and came to the mouth of the limestone cave called "Asquiroga". On the cave walls and ceilings you can still find a few petroglyphs painted in quicklime that have star courses and sea lanes drawn there by the ancient Chamoru seafarers. (In 1924 an ethnographer from Hawaii carved one of these petroglyphs out of the cave wall and took it to the Bishop museum in Hawaii, where it still is on display)

The first cave we entered had a tiny entrance hole about 3 feet x 3 feet. No one wanted to go in first after our local guide Jesse. I had been there before 5-6 years ago, so I crawled right in after him. I couldn't find Trevor's head lamp, and only had a small flashlight with me. Wouldn't you know it, the battery promptly gave out, and it was literally so dark, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

After sliding in the tunnel, we came to a cavern. We climbed up a slippery rise with the aid of a rope.

And then we headed down...
down...
down....

But that wasn't the end of the cave. We had wormhole tunnels to crawl through.
My friend Nan and I were literally inching forward on our stomachs. The only way I could move was by pulling myself forward with my forearms. I have lots of bruises on my arms and knees but it was all worth it for the adventure.
The main group surfaced for fear of claustrophobia but our other local guide Barbara Villagomez stayed with 4 of us to continue slithering through these tunnels.


Barb kept saying "get low" "get lower". I would have hit my head several times without her.
Barb is a lot of fun, she made us laugh the whole way.

We had 4 more caves to check out. The next cave no one knows how deep it is. Dave Lotz an expert guide/cave explorer took a 200 ft. rope down and still didn't find the bottom. It's like the Marianas Trench.

This is just one rung down. We semi rappelled down and looked over the abyss.

You can just make me out with the 2 lights on the right.

The sinkholes and stalactites (from water leaching the calcium out of the limestone for centuries) in all these caves were so amazing. You couldn't help but be impressed by nature's simple beauty.

When leaving the last cave I thought there should be a sign on the cave that says "the way is dark, can't tell what's around the bend, the rope is short but life is shorter. GO FOR IT anyway!"