The Gruntfest (aka Caving)
Posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
NOTE: There’s an unspoken rule in the world of caving about not publicizing caves and their locations, so with respect to that I have chosen to leave out any reference of said cave in this report. Caving is dangerous, rescues are extremely difficult and caves are very fragile. If you do ever choose to go, make sure it’s with someone who is experienced and be prepared.
"Sure Luke, sounds good man. I’m in!" Right after I hung up the phone it sunk in what I’d just agreed to. WHAT THE HELL was I thinking? I’d just agreed to go caving with a group a friends. I pondered my last trip to the same cave a couple years ago, a through-trip where you go in one cave and exit out another. I’m pretty sure it took my mind about a month to come to terms with what I went through on that day two years ago.
I’m a big fan of climbing, the gear is cool, the challenge is great; I especially love being in the mountains. But caving? The challenge is there for sure, you use a lot of the same gear and you’re… uhh… under the mountains. I’m still unsure how I feel about the whole experience, but I must have found some enjoyment the last time I went because I agreed to go in again.
There were six of us in the group going in: Luke, Brendan, Mark, Chad, Kathryn and me. Only half of us had been through prior.
It was good that everyone on the trip had quite a bit of climbing experience though! We started the approach and the fall colors were amazing and the weather was sunny and beautiful. We reached the entrance cave after a 90 minute hike, scrambled into the mouth and said our goodbyes to that sweet sweet sunlight. Hello Headlamps!
The first part of the cave greeted us with a ice sidewalk that led down to our first rappel. I thankfully brought my crampons while others decided to forgo them, which in hindsight might not have been the best choice. We ended up hip belaying the crampon-less companions down to the rappel station. The first rappel was about 40 feet, which was completely overhung after the initial lip. Once we all got down, we pulled the rope. No turning back now!
This is where the grunting began, the packs came off and we crawled through our first wormhole. A small tunnel where we pushed our packs in front of us and inch-wormed our way through about 30 feet of tunnel. The tunnel then opened just enough to let us crouch and shuffle along like knuckle dragging caveman. Finally, it opened up to a larger room. From this point on I couldn’t really explain where we went or the things we saw as it all was just weirdness that just blended together. 
We were crawling up this, down that, grunting though tunnels; very narrow tunnels.
We kept intersecting a small creek flowing through the cave, which we stemmed across – one foot on each side on these tiered textured walls the creek had obviously carved out. Sometimes it was quite a stretch, sometimes slimey and always interesting. At one point we rappelled into a room with a waterfall, another point we stripped down to our skivvies and waded through the icy crotch lake (much to nobody’s delight).
After about seven hours of grunting through the cave, we saw light. A wave of relief washed over everyone! Not saying we didn’t have fun. … Everyone kept talking about how fascinating everything was, but there was always that sense of "I gotta get outta here". When we finally came to the cave opening and got our glimpse of outside, everyone was instantly stunned. We went into the cave under sunny skies, but when we emerged there was snow everywhere! It was almost eerie, as if we went through some kind of time warp or something. But it didn’t matter, we were out and it was fun, in a weird sorta way.
Wanna See more? Go check out the Flickr Slideshow
Caving, rock climbing, ice climbing, paragliding, skiing, sledding, snowboarding, mountaineering, swimming, paddling, fishing, lounging. This place is AMAZING!!!
Wading through icy crotch lake??? no thanks! you are brave.