Bob Kirk/Zicafoose Trip Report....Waterfall climbed!

[cavescom]

Trip Date: 25 SEP 05

Trip Participants: Bob Kirk and Keith Sweeney

Photo Gallery
http://www.cavediggers.com/zic/gallery17/

Map Book
http://www.cavediggers.com/zicmap.pdf

The First Cave Trip I’ve Ever Dreaded

by Bob Kirk

Prelude: Call it getting older, call it getting softer or call it one hell of a cave trip. Mark Passerby and I went in on the previous weekend and surveyed 600 feet. We found a great spot at the end of the know cave to put a camp about 150 feet before we were stopped by a pool of water at a small waterfall. We put a lot of thought into what to name our newly established bivouac site and came up with Camp 3 (are we witty or what). Camp 1 is about 1.5 hours into the cave. Camp 2 is 3.5 hours. Last but not least is Camp 3 (now you see the wit) which is about 5.0 hours in. This previous trip was 4 hours with a 21 pound camp pack on my back to Camp 2, then survey to the waterfall and went back to Camp 2 to sleep. We went out the next morning from Camp 2 in 4.5 hours with full and still very heavy packs. We both were never so glad to be out of a cave as on this trip. Zicafoose Blowhole is a cave then never gives a caver much of a break. The cave constantly shoves you into the floor, or squeezes you down into 50 feet plus crawls, straddles you over a canyon, scoots you around long bends and keeps you scrambling. No, not a lot of walking. No booming borehole, it’s in other caves.

Yes, one gets a short reprieve from time to time with a few short minutes of upright walking (I now understand why early man is always depicted hunched over…he lived in Zicafoose). I think you have the picture so I believe its time to move on.

On Tuesday after this cave trip with Mark Passerby, I called Keith Sweeney and Mike McMillion to see if they would be up for a logistical trip to Camp 3. We could haul about half our gear to Camp 3 and on the next trip (survey trip) we would have most of our gear and rations positioned to help ease the load on this upcoming survey trip. I had to ponder the call to Mike and Keith for hours. God was it worth it. My mind had whirled all day. Should I wait and suffer the trip with as much as a 25 pound pack or break it up with a lighter pack twice? The trip with Mark was still fresh in my mind. The amount of energy needed to exit the cave is tremendous. We sweated profusely the whole way out.

I called Keith who was all fired up for a trip. Keith wanted to see the waterfall and Camp 3. Keith is 54, he should be sitting at home watching football or something not scrambling around in a muddy, underground cavern. What am I saying, I’m 48 and should be recovering from the previous nights hangover. What lures us into dark places……..shut up and get on with it. OK, OK. Mike has incurred a few set backs lately due to work or medical issues. I think if Keith would have hesitated I would have backed out and opted to go later, damn that Keith. By Friday I knew Mike wasn’t going so it would be just the two us (isn’t there a song like this…. Just the two of us, you and I). Going this far back into Zic with only two people is risky to say the least but we opted to go.

We met on Sunday morning at 0830. Chris Traxler, the cave owner, came over and saw us off at 0920 hrs. We moved smartly to Camp 1 and arrived at 1100 hrs. I went in with a 17 pound pack and Keith loaded his till he could barley close it at Camp1. We spent 30 minutes and struck out at 1130 hrs for Camp 2. Reaching Camp 2 will take us another hour and fifty minutes. At Two I loaded up a few more items to move to the final destination. We had about a twenty five minute break here and head out at 1345 hrs. Now for the fun part. From Camp 2 to Camp 3 is the most demanding section of the cave. This section of the cave is now known as Scooter’s Trail. We scooted into Camp 3 at 1505 hrs. Total time is just over 5 hours, make that 5 hard hours.

We unpacked and took a few pictures then headed up to Raccoon Falls. I took a few pictures and we pondered on how best to rig and cross this three foot deep and seven foot round pool and not get wet. My original thought was to bring in 3mil trash bags to wade to the other side then take them off. Other thoughts were to bolt over or create some sort of pendulum. The last two seemed like a lot of work. Keith and I was getting ready to leave when I noticed the dam that was holding back some of the water could be breached. We dug for about 10 minutes and lowered the water almost a foot. I could span around the pool but on the far side it was still deeper that the top of our boots. We pitched all the bigger rocks into the deep side until I could span and reach Raccoon Falls. I was able to chimney up and stay out of the waterfall. Keith joined me and we did a recon. We were in a 25 foot tall by 3 foot wide canyon still going upstream. After about 75 feet we were stopped by slabs blocking the way on. The slabs were very muddy but we could see blackness beyond. Yea Haw, virgin and still going. We decided a 20 foot rope would be in order to rig a hand line to get over the slabs. We returned to Camp 3 and prepared to go out. We left camp at 1705 hrs. The only good thing we had going for us was the packs were extremely light. We made only two minor stops on the way out and sweated the whole trip. We saw moonlight at 2050 hrs. A whooping 3 hours and 45 minutes.

Not bad for a couple of old men. This second trip wasn’t as dreadful as I had built it up to be in my mind. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a trip I would look forward to but the virgin passage and the hope of borehole turning north tugs at me. We are already planning on going back this weekend if we can get one more sucker, I mean caver that can survey. Zic is now listed as 235 on the long cave list in the US and still going. Kinda like getting married, the second time isn’t as unnerving as the first. See ya later.

Bob Kirk.... bob@caves.com

[batrotter]

Nicely done! It's a good read and your indexed map is very nice.

[cavescom]

Thanks what I am workin on now for the Map Book is gradient coloring of all the passage floors by elevation. So when looking at any piece or section of map where other passages are nearby or crossover you will be able to instantly by color... estimate how far vertically these sections are apart and how high or low it is vertically from the entrance.

Mark Passerby, Caves.com