Moonlight falls bright and dappled through the cedars as we shimmy into a narrow passage beneath the overhang of a hillside boulder that, in the shaky glow of my 13-year-old daughter Zoë’s headlamp, looks like the probable home of a rogue mountain lion.

“Don’t worry, I’ve been in here a thousand times and can assure you there are no lions, tigers, nor bears,” echoes the voice of Outdoor Adventure Experiences guide, Derek Young, 60, from the opening.  

“Famous last words,” I tell Zoë as we maneuver into a long craggy tunnel that opens to five, six, then ten feet high as we go. Inside the air is a chilly 54 degrees and wet. The walls and floors glisten with moisture and otherworldly limestone formations that seem to have oozed or bubbled into place then hardened. For the next hour, we climb, crawl, creep, or repel up, down, and forward through a subterranean maze of natural staircases, knee-deep springs, jagged ledges, pits, tunnels, and thin passages that open here and there onto cavernous rooms filled with stalactite or stalagmite pillars that gleam eerie and spectacular in the beam of our headlamps.  

We reemerge muddy, elated, and panting onto the starry, moon-bright Bridgewater hillside about two-and-a-half hours later. “Quite a different experience from a visit to Luray, huh?” chuckles Young. 

The veteran spelunker has been leading small-group guided tours—night or day—through wild caves in the Shenandoah Valley and eastern West Virginia for more than 35 years. Most entrances sit on private lands or those managed by the National Forest Service and require special permissions or permits to access. While the karst systems* boast features and formations similar to those in show caves like Luray Caverns or Grand Caverns, these are totally undeveloped. There’s been no digging or blasting to open up corridors; there are no paved walkways, handrails, electric lights, or formal staircases. Excursions are physically demanding, last two to five hours, and range in ability level from beginner to expert. 

“I don’t do this to get rich,” says Young. “I do it because I love it,” adding that the caves are precious natural resources, and “I want to introduce people to them and help them appreciate something beautiful they probably didn’t even know was here.”

Young was raised in Manassas. He was introduced to caving as a first-year student at James Madison University by a local pastor. 

“He took me to this very spot,” says Young. An adventure similar to ours left him “blown away.” He remembers thinking, “This is the coolest thing ever,” and begged the pastor: “‘Please, please, please take me to every cave you know about!’” 

The experience ignited a lifelong passion. Young explored five wild caves with the pastor then looked for more. He studied geology and took drives through mountain areas searching for limestone cliffs, outcroppings, and caps. When he spotted promising features, he’d stop at a post office, country store, or at nearby homes to ask about caves.

“Believe it or not, that’s how I found probably 80 percent of the caves I’ve been in,” says Young, who’s explored about 30 noteworthy systems in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky to date. He founded Outdoor Adventure Experiences in 1988 and now does about 50 private tours a year in 14 different caves, in addition to offering guided canoeing, kayaking, and rafting trips—mostly throughout the Shenandoah Valley and Alleghany Highlands. While he enjoys leading adventures for adults, kids and teens are his favorite. 

Back in the Bridgewater field, Zoë beams. And almost on cue, she begs me to take her on another trip.

“You know, geologists say there are likely as many unexplored caves in Virginia as there are ones we know about,” Young tells her. He says it fills his heart with joy to know she could be the first to crawl or step foot in one of them. OutdoorAdventureExperiences.com 

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue.