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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 14, 2009 - 04:11pm PT
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I've been climbing for thirty years, climbed El Cap by 39 different routes, and the other day, I caught possibly the raddest and scariest lead climbing fall I've ever seen! And it happened several miles underground.
I'm part of the group exploring the Mammoth Cave System in Kentucky, working in the Roppel Cave section which lies outside the national park boundaries, and hence outside their regulations. We have excellent landowner relations, and have access to the cave on a regular basis. All entrances are gated and locked, so it's not the sort of place anyone can go, but if you are interested in joining the survey, please give me a shout. We gate the entrances to protect the resource. For instance, we discovered this passage a few years ago, and named it the Great White North for all the gypsum flowers.
Gypsum Flowers in the Great White North – like take off, eh?
For about the past year, we've been working in a "new" part of the cave – the Astrodome-Cosmodrome area – that hadn't been visited [much] since its initial discovery about 25 years ago. With my caving partner Dick Market, and also with the help of others, we first went out there last December with the intention of establishing an underground basecamp a few miles underground.
Dick in Black River – the Route to Cave Camp
Caves are formed by water dissolving limestone, and water – COLD water – is something you need to get used to, if not even enjoy. The temperature in this Kentucky cave system is 54F year round. Most of us wear waterproof coveralls with layers of polypro, but not Dick, who is usually perfectly warm in nothing more than a cotton-poly “work shirt”.
Swiftly Flowing Water in Black River after a Thunderstorm
Check out the “scallops” on the walls formed by the fast-moving water
Black River has some really beautiful sections, including this bit you see above, which you tramp through just before you reach a huge cross-passage at Grand Junction. From Grand Junction, you turn right and follow Upper Elysian Way, which starts out perhaps thirty feet wide by ten feet high, and gradually narrows to stooping and crawling.
Cowpiss Falls and a Long Section of Stoop-Walking in Upper Elysian Way
Nearby the area we’ve been working is Petrified Wood Passage, where there is this amazing hunk of “wood” sticking out of the wall. What happened [I think] is that the log was trapped in the limestone, it decayed and the void was filled with mud that hardened into chert, and then the limestone was redissolved to leave this cantilevered beam. Maybe you geologists know better.
Petrified Wood – the end of the log is still hollow
We first thing we did was to resurvey an existing section of passage to our current standard, which is arguably the best in the world, to establish a "baseline" through this section of the cave. We do this the old fashioned way - with a tape measure, a compass, and an inclinometer. It's tedious and difficult, but precise and accurate when done correctly. We take both foresights and backsights, to check for blunders, and we calibrate our instruments each trip against a known standard. Instruments are different [one compass might read 100 degrees while another compass reads 102 degrees on the same shot] and the calibration increases the accuracy of the survey. Sunspot activity and other imponderables affect the earth's magnetic field, so the same compass might read a half-degree different on two given days, so we try to calibrate our instruments before every trip.
Each “survey shot” includes a distance, which is about as far as you can stretch your survey tape down the passage without it touching a wall. In a big honkin’ passage, you can fly through with fifty-footers. And in miserable little grothole crawlways, you’re lucky if you get a six-footer. Overall, the shots average about fourteen feet these days. For each tape measurement, you need to also take a forward compass and forward inclination using two different instruments, and then you also have to repeat the shots in reverse to increase accuracy and check for blunders. It’s easy to make mistakes, but this built-in system helps reduce errors.
The old surveys were done in a hurry – people were more concerned with quantity rather than quality. The instruments weren’t calibrated, there were no backsights done on the inclination readings, and the sketches really sucked. In many places, the map that was drawn bore little resemblance to reality. We are in the process of fixing this.
Here's a sketch of existing passage that we resurveyed. I made this sketch which is drawn to scale with protractor and ruler, and from this a proper map can later be drawn:
Resurvey and Resketch of Upper-Level Cosmodrome
We attached our baseline resurvey to the room you see above – Cosmodrome – whose location had been pinpointed on the surface by using a cave radio, whereby a transmitter is brought into the cave, and a long-wave radio signal is beamed to the surface so the room can be located. So basically, we know where we are underground relative to the surface. An accurate resurvey from here allows you to know where you are, and helps you find new passage, or connect to existing passage.
Topo Overlay – Cosmodrome is the “blob” west of the “50”
Camp is where all the passages converge farther west
From our baseline, we began exploring new leads, one of which involved a significant bolt climb up the side of a dome. It took a couple trips for Dick to reach the top, but we discovered and surveyed perhaps 1500' of new passage up there, including a room about 60' long x 40' wide x 40' tall, big enough to fit several houses inside. Cool, eh? We found cave rats' nests up there - it's close to the surface - and these little guys had brought in all sorts of goodies, including a couple spent shotgun shells. So y’all don’t go messin’ with no cave rats!
Here's a shot of Dick doing his thing. In all my years of climbing, I have never placed a single lead bolt or rivet, because I consider it to be cheating. [I did place one rivet on Native Son on El Cap after the flake I was hooking busted off, and I took a twenty-foot fall onto a duct-taped skyhook that miraculously held, and there was no other way to bypass the now-missing hook placement]. But my ethics go all to hell underground. You can hide a lot in the dark.
Dick climbing out of Universa Dome
Dick's a pro. I would go anywhere anytime with Dick Market. He is the best cave climber I have ever met. He can shoot instruments like no other, he is tough as nails, bad to the bone, never gets cold, never gives up, the best of the best. Don’t let his Kentucky drawl fool you, he is also one of the smartest engineers I have ever met. He makes the most incredible inventions and has the best ideas! He has put LED’s into his survey instruments to light them, he has a handmade hammer that folds up inside his pack, and he produced running water in my cave camp kitchen. This rating comes from the World’s Worst Engineer, yours truly. My ex-wife used to say that when it came to doing work around the house, I didn’t know which end of the hammer to hold. Funnily enough, I am rather deft with a piton hammer. I wonder how that is?
Caving is one of the few places – besides outer space – where you can actually "go where no man has gone before". Over the last year, we've discovered and surveyed about 9000' of new real estate, some of it huge as described above, and some of it just barely big enough to fit through. Crawling is a way of life when you're caving. So our objective when caving is to discover new passage, and survey it. It's somewhat analogous to making a first ascent and then drawing a topo.
Can you believe this bitchin’ passage was unsurveyed? Woo-hoo!
Lineplot and Sketch of the Above Passage
Either you get it, or you don't. Like climbers, we are Conquistadors of the Useless. More people seem to get climbing than caving. Caving sure isn't for everyone. If you are in any way claustrophobic, you might prefer to view your mountains from the outside in, as a dear friend of mine recently said. And you have to love the mud.
"Life is like caving – you have to take the grovelling with the pretties."
Now the thing about cave exploration is, eventually you achieve "diminishing returns to scale". This is because she's only a virgin passage once. As soon as you survey 'er, she ain't a virgin no more. So you have to find new stuff. And as you find more and more new, there is less and less to find.
A Virgin No More – Surveying one of our New Finds
The large-sized scallops on the wall indicate the passage was formed by slow-moving water
We are starting to run out of new passage to discover and survey, but not quite. There may be another mile of new discovery to get before it's time to pack up our camp and dismantle it. One thing about a multi-level cave like Roppel is that “anything can go anywhere anytime”. Have a look at this survey lineplot, and you’ll see what I mean. It looks like a big bowl of spaghetti. We’ve added almost two miles to this area in the past year alone.
Lineplot Survey – a big bowl of spaghetti
Cross-Section of the Spaghetti
In Roppel Cave, “anything can go anywhere anytime!”
There is yet another level above Dick’s Dome not shown
And by the way, we are STYLIN' when it comes to underground camping! Not quite as good as when I'm on the wall, but you know me well enough to realize we have all the comforts of home, within reason. Like running water and hot food and plush bivis, and even camp furniture! You gotta love our rock tables and chairs, just like the Flintstones. Everything we pack in, we pack out. There is no garbage pile.
Enjoying a hot cup of Roppel Coffee in Cave Camp
We’ve since added more furniture to accommodate a team of four
Please note: the use of alcohol in caves, except in the case of emergency, is strongly discouraged. However emergencies do occur from time to time, so it’s best to be prepared.
The black bag with spigot supplies running water in my “kitchen”
So on this most recent trip, we "drug" in the aid climbing gear, to climb a few of our last climbing leads. We try to climb clean whenever possible, slinging projections on the wall. But when it comes to smooth rock, sometimes the drill is the only way.
So here's what happened in this amazing aid climbing fall.
Dick was drilling his way up the wall, towards what appeared to be continuing new passage above. It's a cave, it's dark, so you never really know if you're going to reach something until you actually get there. It's a bit of a crap shoot. Usually the climbs don't go, but every now and then you find something good, as mentioned above. We’ve made some fine discoveries by climbing in Roppel Cave.
Dick had drilled about half a dozen bolts, and then drilled the seventh hole. He placed the bolt [we use quarter-inch expansion bolts on lead, rivets are not so good on softer limestone] and then he clipped in his aiders with his adjustable daisy. His adjustable daisy is a piece of 7.8mm mountaineering half-rope, the same rope he leads with. We use this skinny lead rope when cave climbing, because it is lightweight and easier to carry into the cave. Thicker rope is too bulky. We are careful - if the rope gets damaged, we toss it.
Dick uses a Petzl Mini-Traxion with a hunk of 7.8mm rope to make his adjustable daisy. It works well, although he is not the best top-stepper I have seen. But he is tall, and his reach makes up for it.
So Dick was leading about thirty feet up, I was belaying with a munter, and I looked up to suddenly see Dick falling, along with a HUGE hunk of limestone! The wall had peeled, and down flew Dick! I can see in my mind's eye that the block is on the right, Dick is on the left, and the block is not going to hit me. My next recollection is that I'm airborne - yikes! I came to a rest five feet off the ground, with Dick upside-down next to me about six feet off the ground.
"Dick! Are you OK?? Dick!"
"Yeah, Ah'm OK. Lower me down, but slow! Ah wanna make sure ah’m not hurt."
I let out slack on the munter, and we both landed in a heap on the floor of the cave.
“Why am ah so close to ground?”
“Well, I didn’t have any slack in the system, but you pulled me five feet in the air, plus the rope stretch.”
“Ah ain’t never pulled anyone off the ground before when I fell. And I ain’t never fallen upside-down before.”
We puzzled this a moment, and then it started to dawn on us. Lying next to us on the floor of the passage was the block that had peeled. I tried to lift it, and my best guess is that it was about a five-hundred-pounder. The amazing thing is that the bolt and hanger were facing upwards on the block, with Dick’s aiders still attached! What the……??
Then we looked at Dick’s harness, and saw that the adjustable daisy rope was shredded, and I do mean shredded. What must have happened was that as Dick came to a stop on the end of his lead rope, but of course the block kept going until it weighted the adjustable daisy. This combined weight of Dick plus block then pulled me up off the floor of the cave. But once the force on the adjustable daisy rope reached about 5kN – a thousand pounds or so and the rated strength of ‘most all toothed cam devices – the teeth cut the daisy-rope to leave Dick hanging in space and the block lying on the ground.
“That’s the worst fall ah’ve ever taken,” said Dick.
“Bloody good thing you hadn’t yet clipped in with your full-strength daisy or a carabiner, cuz if you did, you’d be lying on top of that block along with your aiders.” {shudder}
The things you see when you don’t have your camera, eh?
Dick had sustained a bit of a whack to the side of his helmet that rang his bell a bit, but fortunately not much else. By the next day, his whole left side was pretty sore, as more and more bumps and bruises made themselves known.
“All I remember is the block pushin’ down on my head, and me tryin’ to get out from under it. Usually when I’m drillin’ into bad rock, you can tell by the sound that it’s not solid, but there was no warnin’ this tahm.”
The remnants of rope that had formed Dick’s adjustable daisy were fried. The heat from the fall had dissipated into the cord, and cooked it into a twisted coil like a steel rebar in a fire. Dang.
A couple-three hours later, Dick was back in the saddle once again. He finished the climb by reaching the top of the dome, to find nothing but another blind pit behind. There was no hoped-for passage. Oh well, that’s cavin’.
We did, however, find a really cool shortcut in the cave, that would allow us to reach camp in about half the time but using a different entrance. The problem with the shortcut is that the passage is just big enough to fit through, and you are forced to lie in gloopy wet mud. If we were to come into the cave this way with big camp packs, it would be a miserable trip, and you’d end up coated in mud from head to toe. But it might be a viable way out of the cave. The two-mile survey loop closed with about forty feet of error.
When we got out of the cave yesterday, we simul-cracked our beers, and Dick spoke his usual catchphrase: “We cheated death once again.”
Dick is the Fred Beckey of caving. He’s 69 years old this month, but looks about 50. And when I grow up, I want to be just like him.
Dick in yet another virgin passage we found that the original explorers missed
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:31pm PT
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very cool stuff
I can only hope to be in one piece by the time I'm 69 years old!
thanks for sharing
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Prod
Trad climber
Dodge Sprinter Dreaming
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:32pm PT
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Crazy stuff Pete!.
Looks like fun though.
Prod.
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LuckyPink
climber
the last bivy
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:34pm PT
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this is an awesome post of your caving expedition! Cheers to you and Dick Market for Big Sack adventure!
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Cpt0bvi0u5
Trad climber
Merced CA
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:39pm PT
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Great stuff Pete. I guess the cave is warmer than the great white north eh? But seriously thats some awesome stuff mate!
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:42pm PT
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Pete, thanks for taking the time to share lots o' pics and background info to give us more insight into caving. I've been fascinated over the years, even went to some caver's meeting once or twice, but ultimately have to pick and choose how to spend limited time.
That fall was lucky for both of you... you are lucky the daisy from your buddy to the rock that hit the ground didn't piano-wire you in half! He is lucky the rope broke before yanking him apart or having a loop of slack wrap around a limb all Ahab style.
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Robb
Social climber
The Greeley Triangle
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:42pm PT
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Awesome TR.Maybe this is a noobish question, but how do you know about your air qualty (ie; toxic or knott)?
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:45pm PT
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hey there 'pass the pitons' pete, say, i just LOVED this adventure....
and i thank god your friend and you are safe and well after that...
i can mostly kind of understand what happened, i think, but not all the way.... whewwwwww....
sure do love the tunnels and such...
god bless and thanks for the share.... :)
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
obsessively minitracking all winter at Knob Hill
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Nov 14, 2009 - 04:47pm PT
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Yowza! thanks for that glimpse into something most will never see.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 14, 2009 - 05:05pm PT
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Wow, thanks for all your fast responses! I guess there are more people like me who need to Get A Life On The Weekend, but oh no, we play with our computers instead of going climbing.
Air quality is a non-issue. In such a big cave system, the air is moving arouund all the time. One of the best ways to find new passage is to "follow the air". If there is air moving in a passage, it has to come from somewhere, and it has to go somewhere. If you find a small hole that has a good draught blowing out of it or getting sucked into it, this is the place to dig!
Airflow increases when the temperature differential between the outside air and the cave air - which is always 54F - is biggest. So really hot or really cold days are the best for cave exploration, because the airflow is the fastest in the cave.
As for underground bolting, I'm like the man opposed to capital punishment, yet who stands in the village square to watch the hanging. Have another look at the photo of Dick drilling - it's power all the way.
Those bloody batteries are heavy, too. The worst thing is to go into the cave, and not find anything to climb, because you have to carry back out the weight of all those unused electrons in the battery. So we try to climb something, if only to make the batteries lighter weight for the carry out.
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nita
Social climber
chica from chico, I don't claim to be a daisy
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Nov 14, 2009 - 05:19pm PT
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Wow, incredible and Yowza... Do you ever get blue from lack of sunlight?...
ps..I love your caving stories..
Edit ; for T2..Not only am i afraid of the dark... i'm resentful of the dark.
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T2
climber
Cardiff by the sea
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Nov 14, 2009 - 05:25pm PT
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Very cool adventure Pete. Looks scary to me I am affraid of the dark.
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Nov 14, 2009 - 05:30pm PT
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Pete that is a great story man, thanks for sharing. Really interesting stuff, looks fun!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Nov 14, 2009 - 05:36pm PT
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Great TR.
Anytime you feel like posting more cave stories and pictures, I'm ready to read.
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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Nov 14, 2009 - 05:55pm PT
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Wow, Pete, that's cool!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Nov 14, 2009 - 05:58pm PT
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Amazing and well done TR Bro.
For what looks like crawling through intestines, that's pretty bitchin!
peace
Karl
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Denise Umstot
climber
Princess of the El Cap Bridge!
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Nov 14, 2009 - 06:13pm PT
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Wow! Way cool:) Great TR! I bet the best part for you is finding the virgin route...oh that is our Pete! Thanks for sharing and I am glad that no one was seriously injured. Welcome back!
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bob
climber
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Nov 14, 2009 - 06:17pm PT
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Great stuff Pete. Really! I once enrolled in a caving course and bailed because the closer it came to me the more terrified I would become. Sleepless nights, shakes, etc. I am not a caver. i am very c-phobic. I quite the course before it began. The Harding Slot almost made me cry.
Charge it man!!! Great adventuring. Thanks a ton for sharing.
Bob J.
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Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
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Nov 14, 2009 - 06:17pm PT
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Great report, Pete - thanks for sharing!
Glad to hear you guys survived that close call.
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Slakkey
Big Wall climber
From Back to Big Wall Baby
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Nov 14, 2009 - 06:24pm PT
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WOW, way cool and interesting to boot. Great job on the TR too.
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