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BobZimmerman
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Post subject: Memorial Day Cave Trip Report - The Pearl Harbor Passage
 Posted: Dec 09, 2004 - 02:05 AM
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Joined: Jun 30, 2004
Posts: 0
Status: Offline
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Howdy all,
First of all, I want to thank Bill Stone and Lew Carroll and Gordon Brace and anyone else who was involved in arranging the weeklong Memorial Day Cave trip this December. I had missed November because I got sick, and knew I couldn't come during the traditional second weekend in December because of other plans. The week camp allowed me the chance to get in the cave one more time in 2004, and it paid off!
The plan had been for Pete and I to meet at the Gateway Sunday evening at around 4 pm, go in the cave, drop off Pete's aid-climbing gear at the dome he wanted to climb, head to base camp, and return to bolt the dome Monday morning.
I got to the Gateway on time, only to discover that it was closed on Sunday. Duh!
Anyway, after leaving Pete a note, I went to Seneca Caverns to eat. Pete soon joined me and asked if we could wait until Monday morning to go in the cave. He had just led a Simmon-Mingo through trip the night before, getting out at 3 am. He had only gotten about 6 hours sleep and wanted some more time to recharge.
Normally I hate going in on the same day we plan to survey, since the trip in is so exhausting. Still, Pete looked so tired I agreed and off we went to the PSC fieldhouse to get a good night's sleep.
Beforehand though we stopped at Jeff's place to see what was happening with the weeklong crew. Bill, Andi, and Pavo were busy prepping their gear, and explained that Lew and Yvonne were underground working on widening the Puppet Buster. Bill also mentioned that they were thinking of doing a dome climb near the 125 foot drop, which sounded like the very drop Pete was planning on doing. Pete suggested that Bill do the lead near the Mud Climb, which had been discovered in a photo by Paul Gillis. (We later learned that there had been some confusion about which bolt climb was which, and that the climb Bill was hoping to do was exactly the same one Pete was suggesting!)
Pete and I then spent the night at the PSC fieldhouse, returning and entering Memorial Day at around 10 am.
We reached the dome at around 1 pm, which is located at station X47, about 20 minutes from the bottom of the 125 foot drop. After sorting gear and prepping the climb, Pete started up the wall at around 3 pm.
Three-plus hours later he pulled himself onto the top, only to discover that the lead didn't go as we had hoped. All he could see was a second pit in front of him that seemed to dead bottom about twenty feet down. When he rigged the static line so that he could drop as much extra rope down this pit as possible it seemed to reach the bottom, though he wasn't sure.
By now Pete was tired and thirsty so he retreated to the bottom of the aid climb so that I could go up and check things out with Pete's 50 watt very bright light.
At that moment who should arrive but the weeklong crew. As everyone chatted about their plans I started up the drop, cleaning off bolts as I went. When I reached the top the bright light quickly showed that the rope reached the bottom of the second drop. I rappelled in.
It was incredibly muddy. The bottom of the new dome was essentially two small rooms, one slightly higher than the other. I entered the lower room through a small window about five feet off the floor. The room was damp, with a pond in the center and a tiny, wet, muddy infeeder at its base that was too small to enter.
I returned to Columbia Canyon and Pete and I headed to base camp, getting there around 11:45 pm. After the normal milling around everyone was in bed by 1 am.
The next day we got a late start, leaving base camp at 10 am. Our plan was for Pete and I to go to the high end of the Pinnacle Room and using a prybar to dig steps up a mud wall to reach a high lead. We had checked this mud wall out in October and it looked like we only needed to go up about 15 feet to reach the ledge near the ceiling.
The mud was easy to shape into steps, even though it did go almost straight up. Fortunately, at 10 feet up Pete hit rock that could support a bolt. While I kept working on making our steps bombproof, he scrambled back to base camp to get a manual bolting kit. After putting in one bolt, we had an anchor in which I could belay him while he worked. Very quickly he dug his way up, and within twenty minutes of getting the bolt in place he was standing on the ledge.
Was it merely an alcove, as usually happens? Or did it go? Anxiously I called up to Pete, "What do you see? Does it go?"
His answer, in loud deep tones: "Glory!!!!!"
While he set a bolt to rig a handline for climbing the mud wall safely, I found a survey station so we could tie things in. We did one shot, though we have to come back with a disto to get an accurate distance. Then I scrambled up his steps, using the handline.
Pete's reaction was accurate. The passage in front of us was easily fifteen feet wide and twenty feet high. And it seemed to get bigger in the distance!
We had been talking about the need to give names to more locations in the cave, and decided we had to give this new passage a name. As Memorial Day Cave had been found on Memorial Day, and as this had been a theme for many of its names, we thought we should continue the theme.
Suddenly I realized that we had made the discovery on December 7th. The name Pearl Harbor Passage thus made perfect sense.
Unfortunately, it was already past 3 pm, and I had to leave the cave that night so I could be back home by midday Wednesday. We decided to survey until 5 pm and then head out.
We took two shots into a large thirty foot wide room, stopping at the base of a gigantic breakdown boulder, which annoyingly seemed to block our way. While Pete sketched I struggled to find a way up. From below we couldn't tell if the passage continued, or whether we had simply reached the end of an alcove. To find out we had to reach the top of that house-sized boulder.
At first I thought I could go straight up the boulder's left end, but soon found that route was a bit too exposed for my taste. Then I realized I could climb about ten feet up and then into the breakdown. Maybe there was a way up that way. I crawled into a hole, and immediately found a fissure that went up and through! "Yes!" I yelled.
Pete called out, "Does it go?"
"I'll know in a second," I replied as I pulled myself through the fissure.
At first it looked like bedrock walls surrounded me. Then my eyes followed the wall and discovered blackness. I scrambled sideways across the top of the breakdown to find myself staring into a 10' by 10' wide borehole with a meandering streambed disappearing into darkness as far as I could see. Yowza!
Time was now short. We quickly surveyed across the top of the breakdown, as well doing as one shot into the stream passage.
By now it was after 5 pm. We had no choice but to head out. For the first time in my life I had to turn around in going virgin borehole. Most frustrating.
We reached the surface at 1 am, for a total underground trip of 39 hours.
Before leaving we left a note at basecamp, describing the find and asking everyone to leave it untouched until the January weekend when I can return. As I mentioned in an earlier email, this was one of the rare times recently that a lead I pushed opened into big borehole, and I'd like to be on the team that maps it.
Regardless, once again Memorial Day Cave has paid off. Since I started doing these base camp trips I have seen virgin passage on every trip. If this ain't heaven I don't know what is.
Till January,
Bob Zimmerman |
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rrobins
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Post subject:
Posted: Aug 06, 2005 - 04:15 AM
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Site Admin
Joined: Jun 15, 2004
Posts: 109
Location: Silver Spring, Maryland
Status: Offline
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| Deleted (Japanese?) spam and related messsages that seemed to be attracted to the Pearl Harbor title of the thread. Thread is locked to keep the spammer out of this thread. |
_________________
Bob Robins, PSC #255
http://psc.cavingclub.org
http://cavingintro.net
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