Chinese Class

Slim, bespectacled and speaking in gentle tones, it is hard to associate this American girl working on her notebook PC with the perilous life of a professional caver. In fact, she is more than that as she helped to found Hong Meigui, a cave exploration society in China.

The differences between mountaineering and caving are more than simply deciding whether to scale a lofty peak or plunge into the bowels of the earth, explains 30-year-old Lynch. Caving poses more challenges since you are advancing into an unknown world with no knowledge of what you may come across, she adds while bringing up CG shots of caves she has explored in China.

Furthermore, interjects her partner Duncan Collis, caving is far more accessible since it is informal in nature. Cavers simply need to be aware of safety methods and be thoroughly trained instead of signing up with an expensive profit-earning mountaineering group.




Duncan Collis in Wulong, Chongqing to learn Chinese

The caves first called to Lynch back in 1998. As a member of Cambridge University Caving Club, Red Rose Cave and Pothole Club (Hong Meigui), Southern California Grotto, and the National Speleological Society, she also volunteered for the Cave Research Foundation. She has since traveled the world, caving in the US, the UK, Ireland, Austria, Spain and Mexico.

In 2000, Lynch received a grant from the Durfee Foundation's American/Chinese Adventure Capital Program to explore caves in China for a year. Her love for the country blossomed and she decided to stay here after her year concluded.

32-year-old Collis began caving in 1994, also with the Cambridge University Caving Club and has since become a member of the British Cave Research Association.

Now, Lynch carries out research for the Guilin Karst Institute while Collis teaches English, although both of them still spend most of their time exploring and mapping out south China's caves.