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kvmapr
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Post subject: Memorial Day Cave Camp - December 10-12, 2004
 Posted: Dec 14, 2004 - 04:27 AM
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Joined: Jun 16, 2004
Posts: 224
Status: Offline
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Memorial Day Cave Camp - December 10-12, 2004
After some serious packing and repacking of camp gear on Friday morning, December 10, 2004, Mark Stover, Robert Monczka and I (Yvonne Droms) entered Memorial Day Cave around 1 pm and worked our way through the crawls and squeezes to the Puppet Buster and to the top of the 125-foot drop. It was new territory for me from that point on. What an awesome experience to emerge from the extremely tight Puppet Buster only to look down into that huge space that is Columbia Canyon!
All this must go to Camp! Organizing gear for the weeklong camp - Yvonne Droms
We dropped into the canyon by way of the rebelay and the redirect, then proceeded onwards towards Camp. At the Gillis lead, we found the Weeklong Camp team: Lewis Carroll, Bill Stone, Andi Hunter, and Pawel (Pavo) Skoworodko. Pavo was bolt-climbing his way to a large window about 100 feet up the dome. Andi was hanging from a bolt half-way up the wall, belaying Pavo.
We spent an hour eating lunch with Bill and Lew, while watching the progress. Pavo was running out of bolts, and he had just hit some bad rock, so the outlook for finishing the climb was not good. Robert and Mark and I continued on to go set up camp, arriving around 6 pm. We planned to go check out a digging lead, but the bolt-climbing team arrived just in time to convince us that it was time to relax for the evening and to party instead. 
Cave Camp: (left to right) Robert Monczka, Andi Hunter, Bill Stone, Yvonne Droms, Lewis Carroll, Pawel Skoworodko. Darren drums rule! - photo Mark Stover
Late that evening, while the party was still going strong, Pete Penczer and Scott Wahlquist arrived also. Camp was certainly crowded at that point: nine people! We all debated what leads we wanted to tackle on Saturday. Pete and Scott had a good lead to survey. Lew and Pavo decided to head out of the cave. Bill, Andi, and I decided to pursue the dig Mark and Robert had been telling us about, since we were out of bolts for any more climbs.
After a good night's sleep and a leisurely breakfast, we bid goodbye to Pavo and Lew who volunteered to carry all the bolt-climbing gear out of the cave. Thank you for that great team spirit! Pete and Scott went off to their lead, and the five of us headed to the dig, further into the cave.
This again was new territory for me, and I enjoyed the trip to the digging lead. We spent the next ten hours taking turns digging at the front. We first had to enlarge a little room so we could move around enough to fill the bags with dirt, then we started into the body-sized tube, scraping dirt ahead of us into piles that we passed under our bodies to the person behind, who would scrape it out into the little room to fill the bags.
Bill Stone crawls out of the tight dig. - Yvonne Droms
It was tiring work, but progress seemed easy since the dirt was quite loose. After a couple of turns each, Robert broke through into a taller section and went off exploring with Andi. They found a little room, then unfortunately the passage tightened again, so they asked me to see if I could squeeze through. I couldn't go much farther than Robert did: the passage was only six or seven inches tall and it continued that way for as far as I could see. The soil is the same type as before, so removing it will be easy, but it will be progressively more difficult to get rid of it, since there are not many place where the dirt can be stashed.
It was after 10 pm when we got back to Camp, tired and hungry and sore from digging. A hot meal revived us, and we had a good party going when Scott and Pete came back from their survey: they had mapped about 900 feet of passage. That was great booty compared to our 60 feet of sandy squeeze, but we will be consoled and rewarded when our lead opens up miles of borehole passage due north. The wind in the dig certainly is very encouraging.
Yvonne Droms wakes up at Cave Camp. The walls are covered with Gypsum. - photo Lewis Carroll
One more night at Camp, and it was Sunday morning and time to head out of the cave. Bill and Andi had been in cave for seven days and wanted to get out in time to catch a bit of sunlight, so we planned to leave early. Robert and Mark left quite early since Robert had to drive all the way to New Jersey that same day. Pete and Scott then followed around 9:30 am. Bill, Andi, and I left one hour later so we would not bunch up at the 125-foot drop. When we arrived at the rope, we could still hear voices up in the Puppet Buster, but the rope was free, so it was perfect timing.
Everything went well with our huge camp duffels until we entered the Puppet Buster, then life became truly miserable. We organized ourselves so we would enter in the correct order. I climbed up the rope and went into the narrow crack first, backwards so I could pull my pack through instead of pushing it and risking getting it wedged, thereby cutting off the only way out of the cave. Andi followed me in so she could dislodge my pack if it got trapped in the slot. After my duffel made it through, I went back to help Andi with her duffel, and when that made it through, Andi went back to help Bill with his pack. Finally we were all out of the trap that is the Puppet Buster. What a dangerous place it is!
At the top of the 50-foot climb, we missed our turn and went off into the wrong passage. We wasted close to one hour dislodging packs from the tight crawlway after we realized our mistake and finding our way back to Miles' Mousehole. We continued pushing and shoving and passing our heavy packs through these passages not meant for them. Finally around 5 pm, we exited into the rest of the daylight: it had taken us two hours to get to the 125-foot climb from Camp, but 4.5 hours to get out from there...
But man... was I glad to be out. I'm very happy to have had the opportunity to explore part of this cave. Not sure when I'll be back, but it would be nice to travel light next time...
Yvonne
Pawel Skoworodko and Lewis Carroll leave Camp for the surface after 6 days underground. - Yvonne Drom
If you would like to post your thoughts on this report enter them into the Reply Box below, then click submit.
Also be sure to check out other photos from this trip at:
http://psc.cavingclub.org/modules.php?set_albumName=MDC-Camp-Dec-2004&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php |
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posted by KVMAPR
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 19, 2004 - 03:40 AM
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Bruce "CaveAir" Zerr. Loved reading your report out here in Calif. I was once a PSC member - way
back when. I was the first one to climb down inside virgin cave - at Robbies Rotten Rift Cave, after Nevin
busted the final rock blocking the way in, back in the Summer of 1971. |
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kvmapr
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 19, 2004 - 04:02 PM
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Joined: Jun 16, 2004
Posts: 224
Status: Offline
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| I think these days that dig is refered to as just "Robin's Rift". I've never visited it but the old timer's in the club tell horror stories of working the dig there under loose breakdown. As I understand it the dig has never really been completed because each time they get in, the dig eventually recollapses on them. But it still moves a lot of air I'm told. |
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posted by KVMAPR
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