Caving We Go with Kim Smith

This week Clint and Dawson sit down with Kim Smith. Kimberley Bodenhamer Smith’s Facebook Bio says: “Texan born in California and residing in Tennessee: Mudder, Author, unicyclist, Caver, Transhumanist, and an Episcopalian.” Many other labels and clubs could be added to the vast interests of this American TAG Caver. Kim, as she prefers to be called by friends and family (or Kimmie with an IE) is a typical Alpha female caver. "She states you either love me or hate me. I have a polarizing personality.

Kim bought Chilliheads a fleece product company, from Darrell and Susan Bryant in the winter of 2010. The company started on Signal Mountain, TN in 1991. Chilliheads was one of the first fleece hat and liner companies in the southwest and serviced mountaineers, rock climbers, skiers, kayakers and cavers just to name a few markets. This was a “golden ticket” into the caving community that is notoriously a very closed community for a number of very legitimate reasons which we discuss. Kim states; there are only 15,000 active NSS Cavers in the US.

Kimberley put the pleasure and service of the sport before her business, and became the secretary of Chattanooga Grotto and sat on the executive committee for three years. Finishing out her Geo-political contribution to the National Speleological Society, as the chairwoman of CG in 2014. The Chattanooga grotto is an elite group of big-name Cavers and has been in existence for over 50+years. Kim has also been a member of the Sewanee Mountain Grotto. Her cave mentors have been the late Moore J. Smith of Lookout Mountain, Page Ashwell of the TAG Grotto, Kelly Smallwood of the G-Spot Grotto, and the late Steve Hudson of PMI ropes.

Her love of adventure began by running away from ski school on Mammoth Mountain at five in 1981—to white water rafting the Zambezi river in August 1999, right after South Africa’s apartheid. She also built a cabin off grid at 10,000 feet in Park County Colorado, in South Park Ranches, during her early 20s. She is an avid skier/snowboarder. The snowboarder was retired in 2006 after having a level three spinal fusion at C-three, four and five.

Kim’s NSS number is RL63293. She’s waiting on that 15 year pin—it’s a year or two off from showing up in the mail. Kim is fiercely loyal and loving. Kim is proudest accomplishment in life is her son Bo, 19 and Burke who is a senior and 18. She believes deeply in manifestation and synchronicity.

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