A Classic Cave Tour With A Creepy Twist
Meet the creatures who volunteered for this Grottoes’ Halloween tradition
By KELLY JASPER
Northern Augusta Journal (Harrisonburg, Va.)
Four hours passed before Whitney March could climb free of a crevice where she laid trapped, begging for the help of passer-byers. Some just stared at her body laying limp in the rock. Others laughed. Some screamed.
She seems excruciatingly uncomfortable, her torso pinned between two slabs, her arms flailing out onto a gravel path ahead. But March doesn’t mind. She volunteered to be victimized and, in the process, to spook the spectators who wander through Grottoes’ Haunted Cave at Grand Caverns each Halloween.
Friday night, March played a trapped tour guide, wearing a matching helmet and uniform like the handful of participants trained to coax cave-goers through the I5-minute tour. She supposedly became trapped after a scare from one of the cave’s creatures. So now she lays at the foot of the path, grabbing ankles and shocking groups as she comes to life with each passing tour.
“The screams are most satisfying,” said March, a junior at James Madison University from Winchester. “But you sort of feel guilty when you really get a rise from little kids. One girl got so scared that she stomped on my arm.”
But that sort ‘of comes with the territory. The cave is meant to spook. Grand Caverns has produced the Halloween tradition since the ’80s, adding more complex scenes and actors each year.
This year, a fog machine pumped out a haze so thick that it took a team of photographers an hour to properly light and develop photographs for this article. At each bend hid a monster, scene or surprise. And the scares began far before the tour.
Inside the cavern’s stone lodge, a storyteller foreshadows some of the spooky sights in the cave. The building’s preexisting stone, plaster walls iron fixtures and chandeliers set the perfect scene for the haunted tales. Families stand in half-circles, surrounding Sue Weston, a story teller from Loudoun County, before they venture up the hill to the cave’s entrance.
Outside, the air is cold and very, very dark. But a few steps into the cave, and the temperature warms 20 degrees ─ the cave stays at a constant 54 degrees year round. Tour guide Bobby Toms starts a group down the trail much like he would any other tour. He warns about touching the walls, or bringing food or drink inside the cavern ─ except today he’s not focused on conservation efforts. These warnings, of course, have a Halloween twist.
“I touched the walls. That was my worst mistake,” said Toms, a 20-year-old from Richmond. He points to his face, streaked in blood, implicitly explaining the consequences of his actions. “And let’s not bring in any food or drink.” Whatever waits for them inside the cave “is pretty hungry.”
A strobe light greets the group as they cross a graveyard near March, the trapped guide. Out comes another tour, lead by a well-dressed devil, who refers to the cave as “his underworld.”
They pass a gatekeeper, who begs kindly, “Do not die in my cave, please. There are enough bodies in here already.”
The tour steps pass a stream of rats, trailing over the rocks and out of the graveyard. A zombie comes to life and shocks a little boy, whose cries pierce through the heavy fog even when he can’t be seen. The tour turns around a bend, where a woman shrieks. She’s found the vampires waiting just steps below.
Around the next rock, another woman’s screams fill the cavern. But it’s definitely not a Halloween thrill-seeker. It’s Laura Daniel, an actor who tries to escape from the grasp of a cannibal and witch doctor determined to feast on her tonight. Her scream is sharp, and after an hour, her throat is sore.
“I’m having so much fun, but I’ve got to tone it down a bit,” said Daniel, a JMU freshman from Virginia Beach. “I’ll lose my voice too early.”
The cannibal who chases her is Steve Cummings, a JMU student who is president of the school’s caving club. Its members volunteered to act in the haunted cave, posing as a number of ghosts or goblins throughout the night.
It took 30 to 40 people to coordinate the event, said Park Manager Stephanie Sackett. She’s worked on the haunted cave for three months. But the time, she said, was well spent.
“Caves are spooky anyway. Turn off the lights and add scary music and it starts to get pretty frightening,” she said. “And people love it. The phones have been ringing off the hook for three days.”
Successfully planning the tour, however, means balancing scariness with safety.
“The caving club members know about cave safety,” she said. “They’re a great resource to have.”
The club members were given costumes and roles when they appeared Friday evening. The costumes and props were simple, but went a long way toward building the cave’s haunted feel.
“We took quite a few trips to Wal-Mart and Glen’s Fair Price,” Sackett said.
Most of the actors worked in four-hour shifts, with a tour entering every 10 minutes. The Halloween tour is only a small glimpse of the full hour and 15 minute tour the caverns usually give.
On Friday, the haunting ended when a masked man chased the groups toward the entrance, as the tour guide calls for a retreat from the narrow cave passage. The groups hurry pass the cannibal scene, pass the vampires and coffins, pass the zombies and graveyards, back to the cold air outside, where goody bags wait for kids on the tour.
On the way out, tour guide Bob spots March, his trapped co-worker. He grasps at her arm as he ushers his stragglers along. In front of his tour, he tries to console her.
“It’s hot in Hell. I’ll bring you a milkshake. I’ll bring you a frosty.” (It seems personality also goes a long way in leading a successful tour.) He pats her arm before letting go and shuffling past an “Underworld” sign.
“Just hold on. It’s really, really spooky in here.”
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