Katie Dunn, 28, lay on her belly and inched her way through a tight crevice, painfully aware of the rock overhead, the rock below and the kids following behind who needed her to stay calm. “You can’t turn around,” Dunn says. “And you don’t know what’s ahead. It’s nervewracking.” When the whole group made it through the crack and could stand up inside Worley’s Cave in Eastern Tennessee, they were rewarded with glimpses of stalactites and stalagmites—and the confidence of having met yet another challenge. 

Dunn is program director for The American Adventure and Service Corp (TAASC), an Asheville program for children ages nine to 18 that combines outdoor adventure—including caving, rock climbing and paddling—with service, like doing stream cleanup for RiverLink. Every week, Dunn and her colleague, Greg Gillett, meet with students who learn wilderness skills along with communication and conflict-resolution skills. Students then put these to use in weekend adventures, where the focus is on personal responsibility and good decision-making. 

TAASC takes students of every age group on at least one caving adventure, and Dunn has made ten visits to date. Older students actually spend a whole weekend in the cave. “You’re in another world,” Dunn says. “Your senses are heightened in the darkness. You lose a sense of time.” Though the trips don’t include more technical caving gear or skills, the experience provides students with the opportunity to be completely out of their usual environment. “There’s something different about being underground,” she says. “You don’t see the inside of a cave every day.” —Janet Hurley