ORGT

In college I was an instructor in the “Caving sport group” of Outdoor Recreation Georgia Tech. The director of ORGT insisted that we call them “sport groups” and not clubs. Behind his back, it was always the Georgia Tech Caving Club. Horizontal Instructor is actually the lowest rank of instructor, there were about four more above that. Being an instructor was the minimum requirement to go on the really interesting caving trips, so I still got to go on trips planned by my friends who were more into it than I was. (Hi, Nick!). The group was mostly composed of a strange mix of biologists, environmental scientists, geologists, adventure seekers, and people who just really felt at home underground. Caving trips usually involved long car rides, so I got to spend a lot of “side by side time” with very interesting people on the way out and back. Some of my favorite memories from college involve heated debates between four or five cavers on the way back from a caving trip. Having just done something like caving together really lowered the group’s boundaries with each other, and we got to talk about some really interesting things. Caves themselves are really cool, and sometimes astonishingly beautiful. Caving is the closest thing you can do to walking on the surface of another planet. Caves are full of odd formations and strange challenges.