Post by Taylor on Feb 2, 2007 21:33:53 GMT -5
Caving a sport for the curious, cool-headed
by Karen Chávez
published February 2, 2007 2:01 pm
BLUFF CITY, Tenn. – Invisible from the surface roads and the rolling hillsides in this rural town is a subterranean city known as Worley's Cave – a world as foreign to many as the moon.
Welcome to the underworld. "You have to be willing to get wet and muddy and somehow enjoy it. You have to just pretend you're a kid again," said Alicia Henry, 25, chair of the Flittermouse Grotto.
The Flittermouse Grotto – named for the opera, "Der Fledermaus," which means "bat" in German – was founded in the early 1970s by Cato Holler, a dentist in Old Fort and some friends. Holler got into caving as an undergrad in UNC Chapel Hill's outing club and was instantly hooked. The friends started an NSS chapter, known as a grotto, with about eight people. Today the club has some 50 members.
"I started caving as a hobby, but it soon turned into an avocation," said Holler, who took his wife, Susan, caving on their first date. She fell for caving, as did his children, including daughter, Nancy Holler Aulenbach, a nationally known cave rescue instructor who starred in the 2001 IMAX movie, "Journey into Amazing Caves."
"I have been interested in cave biology," Cato Holler said. "We turned up 15 to 20 new species of cave organisms such as isopods and amphipods, very small crustaceans."
In between dental fillings, Holler has become an expert on subterranean cavities and their inhabitants. He even has a cave-dwelling flatworm named in his honor – the Phagocata holleri, which he discovered in the late 1970s in a cave in the Piedmont region. He also discovered many new caves. "No one thought there were any caves outside of the commercialized Linville Caverns," he said. "We found 1,500 caves in North and South Carolina."
Local NSS Chapters
The Flittermouse Grotto meets at 7 p.m. the first Friday of each month at the Black Mountain Library in downtown Black Mountain. For more information, call president Alicia Henry at 274-8777 or visit www.caves.org/grotto/flittermouse/
The Bryson City Grotto just received its charter from the NSS about a month ago. No set meeting times have been set yet, but for more information on the club and its caving trips, call Ben Eudy at 506-9497 or e-mail info@hightrek.org.
www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770202054
by Karen Chávez
published February 2, 2007 2:01 pm
BLUFF CITY, Tenn. – Invisible from the surface roads and the rolling hillsides in this rural town is a subterranean city known as Worley's Cave – a world as foreign to many as the moon.
Welcome to the underworld. "You have to be willing to get wet and muddy and somehow enjoy it. You have to just pretend you're a kid again," said Alicia Henry, 25, chair of the Flittermouse Grotto.
The Flittermouse Grotto – named for the opera, "Der Fledermaus," which means "bat" in German – was founded in the early 1970s by Cato Holler, a dentist in Old Fort and some friends. Holler got into caving as an undergrad in UNC Chapel Hill's outing club and was instantly hooked. The friends started an NSS chapter, known as a grotto, with about eight people. Today the club has some 50 members.
"I started caving as a hobby, but it soon turned into an avocation," said Holler, who took his wife, Susan, caving on their first date. She fell for caving, as did his children, including daughter, Nancy Holler Aulenbach, a nationally known cave rescue instructor who starred in the 2001 IMAX movie, "Journey into Amazing Caves."
"I have been interested in cave biology," Cato Holler said. "We turned up 15 to 20 new species of cave organisms such as isopods and amphipods, very small crustaceans."
In between dental fillings, Holler has become an expert on subterranean cavities and their inhabitants. He even has a cave-dwelling flatworm named in his honor – the Phagocata holleri, which he discovered in the late 1970s in a cave in the Piedmont region. He also discovered many new caves. "No one thought there were any caves outside of the commercialized Linville Caverns," he said. "We found 1,500 caves in North and South Carolina."
Local NSS Chapters
The Flittermouse Grotto meets at 7 p.m. the first Friday of each month at the Black Mountain Library in downtown Black Mountain. For more information, call president Alicia Henry at 274-8777 or visit www.caves.org/grotto/flittermouse/
The Bryson City Grotto just received its charter from the NSS about a month ago. No set meeting times have been set yet, but for more information on the club and its caving trips, call Ben Eudy at 506-9497 or e-mail info@hightrek.org.
www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770202054