The exact assignment was either a 10-page paper or a “media option.” Media reports in the past have included paintings, music videos, and other things which consume the same amount of time and thought of a 10-page paper. My original plan was to do just a webcomic, itself an 8-hour investment, but the webcomic format doesn't quite allow the text needed for the depth of assessment I wanted to provide, and my art is not yet strong enough to convey the experience on its own, so as a compromise I'm trying something that could only happen at the intersection of art and technology: a webcomic that can stand on its own with a linked set of more detailed text annotations for interested parties.
I should note for any ETC readers/graders that I generally keep to a policy of not drawing real people other than myself. I'm bending this a little for the tour guides in this comic since having named characters makes for better storytelling, and readers may wish to seek out, e.g., Jeremy as a river guide. Also, the guides are as unlikely to read this as I am to see them again. Apart from them, I just want to clear up that all other “extras” are from the purely fictional cast of my regular comic. No offense, I just don't trust myself to draw the wonderful real people I rafted and caved with in a manner that wouldn't have them coming after me with pitchforks and torches.

When the module was first presented to us, the name “Cheat River” was tossed around, and the promotional pictures clearly showed whitewater rafting. I was overjoyed to hear that we in fact had four options and could completely avoid whitewater. I'm not afraid of water or rafting or anything- I was a competitive swimmer for over a decade and have gone on numerous whitewater trips from rafting to canoe/kayaking- I've just never been a big fan of the sport. When we were asked in mid September to commit to spending half a day getting thoroughly soaked outdoors in the middle of October, I was not about to bank on that being a fun experience. I get hypothermic fairly easily, don't find water particularly enchanting, and would not be learning much from the trip beyond the local history of the river in question.
I was not at all pleased when the last-minute announcement was made that everyone who didn't choose whitewater would have to go rafting at the expense of another activity. For one, it meant that I'd have to do whitewater, which I wasn't thrilled about. More significantly, however, I saw it as a suboptimal solution. I fully appreciate the work it took to quickly rebook with another outfitter at the last minute, but if I had been a naïve paying guest of an experience and there had been a problem involving an activity I didn't sign up for, I would expect that the people who did sign up for the compromised activity would bear the brunt of the schedule change rather than the people who didn't.

It was bright, sunny, pushing 70 degrees and fairly dry for the whitewater portion of the day. In short, perfect weather for the experience. If the weather had been the usual October 40s-50s and gray, I can say with confidence that I would not have had fun. I've already mentioned I get hypothermic reasonably quickly, and a few people who got soaked on the trip stayed chilly, even in the provided wetsuits, even in the weather we had. The novelty would not have made up for the discomfort, and I would have been even more put off at having been shunted into the activity against my will.

When you're in a guided raft in low- or mid-class rapids, all you really provide is extra power. The guide is more than able to steer the raft on his own and set up the best trajectories through rapids, but being asked to paddle and steer the raft makes you as a guest feel like you have far more of a contribution to the overall success of the experience than you actually do or necessarily need to have. In a worst-case scenario, the guide can simply exit the raft and manhandle it around rocks- our guide let slip that guide training and certification involves swimming down the entire course a guide wants to be certified on, and whether by design or scheduling necessity, doing so in about the worst weather a guide would ever experience.

I had known on a passive level, from past experience, that whitewater guides (and trail guides, and camp staff, and AT hut crews, the list goes on...) commonly joked around and were good for local history and fun stories. However, with senses tuned to the entertainment value of the experience, I came to realize that guides probably aren't fun by accident. It takes time, effort and practice to be able to improvise such a performance while attending to all the safety and control concerns that a guide is more officially paid for, and the mark of a good guide in any experience is the capacity to turn it into a show no matter what dangers are inherently involved.
The outfitters we rafted with, Ohiopyle Trading Post, apparently distinguish themselves from other local companies by focusing on smaller groups so they can make sure each raft gets its own guide as often as possible. They also let you request guides by name when you book a trip so you can ensure the quality level you had one time is the same when you come back.

Tech note: Apparently incandescent bulbs work better for caving than LEDs. I would not have believed this except that I saw firsthand another odd cave phenomenon our guide talked about- batteries die in caves faster than in “normal” conditions- sometimes without even being used. Being an electrical engineer by undergraduate education, I took a look at our caving headlamps and convinced myself that they were pretty hard to mess up, and yet my own light dimmed and ultimately died twice in the cave. When our guide took it to replace its batteries, I saw him try 2 full sets of 4 batteries each from a newly opened package, each of which ended up no better than the ones previously in the light. A third set finally gave a marked improvement. My best guess is that a fine layer of condensation forms on the batteries from the cool, humid cave air, shorting their terminals and causing them to leak power even when disconnected. This still doesn't explain how freshly freshly opened boxes of batteries can contain duds when used in cave lamps in caves. I'd be curious what better explanations a group of more analog voltage-current signals&systems-oriented electrical engineers, or better yet, battery/light manufacturers could come up with if I ever got them down into a cave...

Helmets and lights make caving a much safer experience. Our guide frequently referred to 2-hour trips which turned into 24-hour trips because everybody's light died, or else someone got hurt in the cave due to not following proper safety precautions. Our guide recommended always carrying a chemical light stick, food and water, among other things, and wearing solid shoes and thick pants. However, unlike in rafting and climbing, the caving technology does not per se enable the experience. The caves we explored were apparently known for harboring fugitives during the Civil War and distilleries during prohibition. Apparently caves can be productively explored without all our modern safety equipment, I simply would not recommend doing so given the choice.

Just a note here: I am pushing 6' tall and have been hovering between 115 and 120 pounds for at least the past 5 years. I can fit through some pretty tight spaces, even if I'm not exactly comfortable when I don't have room to move. We were taken through one hole in the cave which was not much wider than my shoulders and not much taller than our helmets. I could fit through, even if I didn't enjoy it. The “low path” the guide directed me to lead people out at the end of the day, however, ended in a big slab of sandstone with, I would estimate, 10” of clearance on the left and less underneath. Prior to this obstruction, the tunnel was maybe 2' wide, tapering upwards to a useful height of maybe 3'. I felt a little ashamed at having to call back and say I couldn't make it out and would prefer to take the secondary passage we'd been led in through, but I honestly could not see fitting around the stone slab, and I remembered the “high” passage we came in through as being much more spacious. When I learned that the “low” passage had collapsed at one point, I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that I wasn't “wimping out,” imagining things and succumbing to mild claustrophobia or concerned that part of this “safe” cave we had been touring had collapsed recently. In retrospect, I should probably go with concerned. If at any point a tunnel which the guide had been planning on using had collapsed and there wasn't an alternative, we would have had to backtrack over terrain- muddy slopes, steep jagged climbs, chasm crossings and the like- which was only remotely safe to cross in one direction. If any part of the cave had collapsed while we were in it, matters could have been worse still.

Our guide pointed out, and I strongly agree, that we went that day into the sort of place very few people in the world ever venture. We were exposed to things that only exist in the particular ecosystem of “living” caves: bats, lichens, mineral deposits, even a strange tufted grassy blue-white algae that apparently thrives on discarded bubblegum. Even if the cave tour wasn't “fun” in the traditional sense, the experience and accomplishment of having explored so far underground and come back out to talk about it will stick with me better than a lot of more stereotypical entertainment experiences.

Okay, that's a little tongue-in-cheek. I wasn't ever actually planing to wear a kilt for rock climbing.
For one thing, I don't yet have a Survival Utilikilt. My Workman's is a little bulky and my Classic is already starting to wear out. But some day...