The most difficult lips

[Scott McCrea]

What is the most difficult lip you have done or know of? The hardest to get over... most awkward... most annoying... you know what I mean. In or out of a cave.

By far, the worst lip I have ever done is the Lower Falls at The Falls on Hills Creek in Pocahontas Co, WV. The only rig point is 30' from the lip. The top is flat as a pancake and slicker that greased owl snot. The 6-8" thick lip is undercut by about 5'. So, the rope breaks over the edge at a 90 degree angle and a long ways away, which gives you no side-to-side stability and awful angles to overcome--if you can get enough traction to stand. Most of us did huge butt-slams on the underside of the lip. Not at all graceful, only slightly painful and ridiculously embarrassing, but effective (best done with a bottom belay).

Here's a pic of the falls. The rope goes over the lip at the thick spot just to the right of the water and left of the tree trunk you can see above the falls.



The worst in cave lip for me is a tougher question because usually good rigging can minimize the lip badness. I always get annoyed by the Nuisance Drop lip in Ellisons. Sites Cave, in WV, can be bad if the rope falls in the slot.

[Cheryl Jones]

My worst: the lip at Surprise Pit in Fern, in the 70s, first up the rope.

The rope was tied around the boulders, and passed through very thick gooey mud before reaching the lip, sinking in a good ways because of the weigh of cavers on the rope. The rope had also dug down into the deep thick mud at the lip, and a "v" in the rock.

At least an ascender will move against rock when you do various maneuvers to inch it up between the rock'n'rope squeeze. But moving an ascender up into a mud groove with the rope fully loaded, is nearly impossible. And since the rope on the upper side of the lip was also buried in the thick mud, attempts to grab the (slimy) rope or place an ascender on it were frustrated. If I recall correctly, climbers get no or little help from the wall under the lip.

I don't remember what the trick was that got me over the lip, but I must have, for I'm here. I do remember struggling, cussing, and having a devil of a time!

(Relating to the other topic on solo caving....when you're on a rope, especially first up at the lip, you're essentially solo caving. )

Cheryl

[cavedoc]

(Relating to the other topic on solo caving....when you're on a rope, especially first up at the lip, you're essentially solo caving. )

Cheryl

This is so true and so the point that new vertical people don't get. Skills to be independant on rope are not extra, advanced topics. They are the bare minimum!

[George Dasher]

Scott: NICE pic of the Falls!!

[George Dasher]

I did an undercut lip during a practice at the New River Gorge.

I got down on the lip in a way that started to bend my rapple rack (bad!)

Whew!! The moment gave new meaning to the term "safety Jumar"!!

[Scott McCrea]

Scott: NICE pic of the Falls!!

Thanks! I borrowed it from the internet.

[mgmills]

By far, the worst lip I have ever done is the at The Falls on Hills Creek in Pocahontas Co, WV. The rope goes over the lip at the thick spot just to the right of the water and left of the tree trunk you can see above the falls.

The drop at Grace's High Falls at Little River Canyon is a lot like the one Scott has the picture of. Real low rig point and real bad undercut. We rigged with a log (tied off of course) under the rope about 8 inches back from the lip to allow ourselves to get an ascender under it.

Once at an Alabama pit called Dinky's Scott Fee wanted to avoid water at the normal rigpoint so he moved the rig to another tree and we ended up with an undercut almost that bad. My pictures from then are from before the digital age (which for me is very recent) right now due to my transitional living arrangement (still trying to finish building our house) all my old pictures are in storage. Too bad, I have a lovely one of me hanging at the lip.

I've been on lots of "new" explorations (read pushing a virgin cave) where the rigs ended up putting us right in a tight "v" shaped crack.

[Uncle Muddy]

I remember coming up with some less than endearing terms for the lip in War Eagle Cave (AL) with someone hanging beneath me on a tandem climb. The lip is not friendly anyway, but darn near impossible in tandem. Besides...there's really no reason to climb this pit in tandem anyway. Duh

[mgmills]

I remember coming up with some less than endearing terms for the lip in War Eagle Cave (AL) with someone hanging beneath me on a tandem climb. The lip is not friendly anyway, but darn near impossible in tandem. Besides...there's really no reason to climb this pit in tandem anyway. Duh

Before I did that cave I'd heard it had a bad lip. I was psyched for it but when I did it thought it was relatively easy. I've done it on a ropewalker and a frog. . . of course I've never done it tandem because it isn't a long drop and tandem doesn't serve much purpose (unless for practice).

There is lots of nice cave at the bottom of that drop but you do get pretty wet if you want to see it all.

For me personally undercuts are harder than against the wall. . . as I get older and smarter I think I'll carry an etrier more frequently.

[Rick Brinkman]

Here's the worst that I have a picture of...

Undercut and a pinch at the same time. I'll be looking to see where I can put a rebelay on the left side on the next trip. Hopefully, I can do it with webbing, but I think it will take a bolt. The rebelay should eliminate the both the undercut and the pinch at the same time.



(I should have made this more clear...her left knee is on the lip.)

[Anonymous_Coward]

I remember having a real "affection" for the lip at the second drop in Birthday Plunge, Indiana. It's about a 50 foot drop. It's been a long time since I was there, but this is what I remember. There is about a 20 foot long keyhole crawl at the top of the pit. You have to rig on the entrance end of the crawl and drag the rope through to the pit. At the lip, there is a rock that the rope must go over and STAY over or the rope goes into the crack in the bottom of the keyhole. What makes it interesting is the crack goes all the way to the bottom of the pit. I remember thinking that if the rope came off the lip and went into the crack, it would make for a REAL interesting ascent. If the rope was in the crack all the way back to the rig, each frog stroke would pull you tighter to the wall. You would have to climb the slick walls and rely on the rope as a belay. I'm not sure if it would work at all with a ropewalker. Luckily, all the times I went there, the rope stayed in the groove on top of the rock. I can remember George Cesnik and I used to say things like "Hey George, don't get hooked on crack" at the bottom of the pit before ascending. Has anyone seen somebody get hooked on crack at Birthday Plunge? I'd like to know how they got out.

[Ralph E. Powers]

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This lip (Spanish Moss Cave in Utah) was notorious for stopping the inexperienced beginner before a bolt/anchor was placed above it. It likewise was a undercut notch that gave no purchase for the feet (except for the ascender's footloop) and if the caver didn't get their hand ascender above that spot they would have to fight to get it over if they were inexperienced.
Now that a bolt/hanger has been placed the caver(s) can simply go straight up until they pass the constriction and then bodily climb out the rest of the way and get off rope.

[ljthawk]

Tight body size holed lips that require squeezing through, like the short drops when trying to do the alternate route to TAG Hall through the bottom of Smokey II.

P.S. Relating to the other thread about using six bars. I just got back from a trip where everyone I watched and asked only used 5 bars on all the drops and couldn’t move on the older rope with six bars. One drop required 4 bars to work towards the IRT rigged lip.

[BenC]

Dropped a pit not too long ago, the lip was a tiny crack between the floor of the passage and a piece of breakdown above. Getting back up you had to press yourself against the cieling of the pit (Breakdown slab), then push through the crack. In essence high centering yourself on your spine until you flailed through the constriction! To add insult to injury the pit was only 12ft deep! Also learned on that trip that a Princeton Tech Corona won't support my body weight.

[GoHighGoDeep]

The rig point closest to the canyon in Rumbling Falls sticks in my mind... one of the few lips I've ever had to fight. It's undercut at about a 45 degree angle and slippery as snot. I did a rather fast climb up my rope (rigged at the good rig point) to check on a member of another group entering the cave as we were leaving who had gotten his rack stuck across the lip... fortunately he managed to extricate himself by the time I got up there. Having the lip completely undercut would be a heck of a lot better, it wouldn't tempt you into thinking you could get a good footing.