Hanging from giant rocks, skiing down snow-covered mountains, spelunking through dark caves and a host of other exploits are at the heart of the Outdoor Adventure Club at Pendleton Heights.

Most recently the adventurers traveled to Marengo Cave to explore the stalactites and stalagmites naturally formed within the earth. Because of the nature of the trip, only the core members of the group participated in this particular outing.

“Caving or spelunking is going inside a cold, wet, dark place and crawling around for a few hours,” said Eric Powers. In addition to sponsoring the club, he also teaches earth and space science, integrated chemistry and physics. “It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun — I’m not sure what makes us want to do it. It’s just something you have to experience.”

Students were acclimated to the experience slowly, beginning with a cave simulator. A small room made of plywood gave the young adults a taste of what was to come inside the caves.

“You crawl around in there like a hamster in a cage,” Powers said. “The kids loved it.”

Next they took a 45-minute tour through a dry portion of the cave and learned techniques for squeezing through tight spots. After a break they were ready for the big challenge — the area of the cave that required wading through waist-deep water.

“Everyone got pretty muddy and wet before they got out,” Powers said. “And then we took a nice 30-minute walking tour through the cave and saw a lot of features, stalagmites and stalactites, which was really nice to walk through and look at.”

“I really like going caving,” said senior Aubrey Sparling. “It’s really cold outside, but it’s nice inside the cave — it’s 52 degrees year round. And then you crawl through mud and water and it’s fun because you don’t get to do that normally. That’s what I like about it.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I loved it when we got to get in the water and get all muddy and crawl around,” said senior Lindsey Scheckelhoff. “That was the best part. I loved it.”

Powers was drawn to become the club sponsor because of his love of the outdoors.

Heavily involved in all these activities in his own personal life, he volunteered to help the students experience them when the founder of the club, Ron Hinton, stepped down four years ago.

Hinton still helps out on some of the trips, as does fellow teacher Aaron Debbink and an assortment of parent chaperones. At least one trip a month is planned – camping, hiking, backpacking, skiing or any other nature-loving activity Powers can think of.

“The best part about the club is getting to have all the new experiences,” Sparling said.

In September the club traveled to Red River Gorge in southern Indiana to go rock climbing. Powers indicated that none of these activities are as dangerous as they sound.

“It’s no more dangerous than riding in a car — if you do it right, if you get the proper safety measures set up and check everyone’s equipment and show everyone how to do it right,” he said. “All of the cave tours were guided and I’ve done a lot of caving — so have my helpers.”

The biggest trip of the year is coming soon — skiing at Perfect North Slopes. Powers said that some students join the club just to go on the ski trip and sometimes the head count is as high as 50 students. A trip to Yellowstone National Park is also on the schedule for the spring.

“The biggest benefit for the students is to experience the outdoors — to get them away from computers and staying indoors,” he said. “They always have a great time and meet new people. I love the outdoors, and we experience some new things camping out for the first time together.”

Of course, planning outdoor activities is always a gamble. Weather can often ruin the most well-planned events.

“We’ve been pretty lucky with conditions so far,” Powers said. “Sometimes students on camping trips don’t waterproof their tents and wake up in the middle of a pond shivering or they decide to sleep outside and wake up to find they are covered in frost. That’s always fun to watch.”

This year he actually ran into unusual circumstances because of a language barrier. In the middle of the caving experience, the German exchange student who accompanied the club yelled out that this was not what she had signed up for. Come to find out she thought they were supposed to visit rabbits in cages.

“The best part is watching them experience something for the first time,” Powers said. “On our rock climbing trip there were several students who were afraid of heights. Watching them overcome their fears with a small climb and then the second day actually doing a 100-foot rappell – just seeing them walk up to the top, look down, step off and rappel down was pretty neat to watch.”