TRIP REPORT: Deep Impact 2.0 Webster Cave System Oct/Nov2006

[worldnaut]

For the Webster Lurkers, here's an update on what's happened recently. On October 28th, 3 cavers made 3 hour drives to discover that we were totally flooded out of the cave. On November 3rd and 4th some trips took place that I have compiled various reports on. Here it is copied from the WCCSG Yahoo site.

Deep Impact Version 2.0, ie. Trip Report

In my Shallow Impact trip report for last week I asked Jeff Gillette about the conditions that he and Pat Mudd encountered in the cave on Saturday Morning of Memorial Weekend. This is his reply and really good information for teams attempting flowing conditions in the future:

Jeff Wrote:

[Hi Pat, Sorry to take so long getting back to you, I took off for 4 days to do a yak and caving trip. It takes another 4 to catch up on my mail. Anyway about the water level at Webster, When I went in it was sumped, the next morning Pat and I went in and we had about 10" air at the sump. We slipped in knowing the water was reseeding. I had to push the yak ahead to get enough ceiling to get in the boat. Once in, I had to lay back and push off the ceiling and chase the grooves, Pat had no boat and continued moving down the side of the passage. After reaching the high ceiling area of Webster ave. Pat reached a strong current and decided to head back, I could feel a strong current and continued to the first portage which had become a serious class 3 rapid. I thought I could get close, and step out onto the ledges. I got close then the water flipped me immediately filling my yak and dragging the boat and me towards the far wall. I was able to get some footing and drained most of the water and head toward the entrance. It was cool to see the passage so flooded but probably not wise to enter in these conditions. If you do be really careful! when I flipped it tried to take the boat to the opposing wall, the current goes under the wall and out toward the spring ent. completely sumped. Even if I had made it passed the first portage I think the ceiling would have sumped soon! I hope this helps! Yaks full of water are 200lb bobbers dragging you with them! Jeff ]
Just before Jeff and Pat went into the cave to these conditions, Chris shot this video at the spring entrance. Plenty of water, but not shooting out like it was the previous night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHDlOJkJPxY

Another attempt was to be made to get into the cave without being vetoed by mother nature on 11/04/06. This is the trip report I wrote. The first paragraph makes references to our travails of the previous week allegorically in terms of computers and software. btw: My kayak is named Deep Impact and Chris's kayak is named Jagged Halo. That might explain some things. Enjoy.

Deep Impact Version 2.0


Last week the installation program for Deep Impact Version 1.0 encountered a terminal error just as it was about to finish that totally crashed my system, so badly in fact that a complete reformat of the hard drive was required. After a week of phone calls to the vendor, a new CD arrived in the mail with Deep Impact Version 2.0! The vendor had assured me that this version would install on my system correctly. Always one to push the limits, I fully intended to install and run Version 2.0 of DI. I only had one concern, I was going to be running it with an untested version of a new experimental exploration program, Joe Martin Version 1.0. Friday, November 3rd arrived; I broke the seal on the jewel case, put the CD in the DVD burner, ran the setup.exe program and with the trepidation accompanying that first step of faith into the great unknown, clicked the Install Icon. This is the epic tale of what happened next.


Webster first timer, Joe Martin and I left work about 4:15, ran by Chris's to pick up Jagged Halo and other stuff for the field house and headed off through Princeton for Sinking Creek Valley. Joe is an engineer and developing rock climber with only one previous non-tourist cave trip under his belt, so he was a little apprehensive about challenging the wilds of a cave like Webster. Mindful that Webster has plenty of passage suitable to terrify those not adequately steeled for hard core caving, I tried to keep the conversation light and frothy while I gave him a whirlwind lesson on Cave Exploration, Mammoth Cave, CRF, Lechuguilla, Long Caves, Deep Caves, Wet Caves and best of all, Virgin Caves. Anxious to properly wet his imagination with the wonders of the Great Beyond underground, I'd stocked the dashboard with all manner of caving books which I was grabbing to show him the appropriate picture or map or story, illustrative of the point being made in my running narrative, drawn from personal experience or books over the last 20 years. Inquisitive and curious, Joe was a quick study.


We arrived at the field house, unloaded our gear, packed our swaygo packs and headed for the cave to drag the kayaks in so we could get an early start into the cave. We pulled up to the cave about 8:00 PM and it was frickin' butt cold already with frost on the yaks. Sans Wetsuits to keep from overheating, we donned our helmets, fired up the Sten's and drug our Kayaks down the karst head for the main entrance. I'd been describing the character of the cave to Joe in great detail so that he would not be surprised and potentially unnerved in the new and strange surroundings. At the drip line, the heat of the cave was a welcome relief from the cold. We dragged the yaks the 480 feet to the foot of Webster Avenue and as part of my plan to break Joe in gently, put them in the water for a little test run.


Here I must shift gears and relate the incredible utility of a kayak in Webster Cave. It was unreal. It was like I was zipping around the inside of Webster like I was on an interstate highway in a corvette. Lakes that had always seemed so long were suddenly surprisingly short. We quickly explored every nook and cranny of Epitome Lake and were going to leave some of the tools we had brought for our work the following day at the first portage. I checked my watch. Joe seemed to be doing great so far. I threw out, "Wanna keep going?" It was a carefully calculated setup. Give him an awesome taste of the size and wonder and scale of Webster, and just when he thought it was time to leave, kick open the gate to the Great Beyond and offer him the keys to the 'vette. He bit.


We carried the yaks over the first portage and headed out. Suffice it to say, Joe was like Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass. We made it all the way to Parks Avenue. The water in the cave was up. I didn't notice it at first. You wouldn't until you were past the first portage but I kept thinking, "I seem to remember the portages being longer" but was confused a bit, unsure how the lack of a death march was altering my perceptions. But after pulling into Parks Avenue, I knew the water was up for sure, for I had paddled effortlessly right over what is usually a distinct ledge about 100 yards downstream from the Parks Avenue Junction. We took off for Echo Hall but when we hit the next portage, I checked my watch and decided if we were going to try and stick to our schedule in the morning we were going to have to quit for the night.


The trip back out seemed even shorter and so easy. Does one-fifth the effort sound right to you guys? Slog and Slip and Slide or Effortlessly Glide! We parked the yaks and hit the frigid air about 11:00 PM, jazzed we had so easily been so deep into the cave. Without wetsuits, we had gotten to the point where the cold was starting to creep up on us in the cave and hit like a ton of bricks in the sub 30 degree air outside in our wet attire. We made for the Field House where it was probably 40 degrees, warm and comfy feeling to the both of us. Once in dry clothes, and after a quick beer, turkey sandwich and hot reds beans and rice (thanks to Joe), we started reevaluating our opinion of how warm and comfy 40 degrees was! I think 50 would have been nifty but for future reference, 40 and below causes the FH to lose just a bit of its mantle of "refuge from the elements". The cold is fine for sleeping, but seems to dampen the hanging out and Bee Essing when your tush is frosting up. At about 12 we packed it in to dream of virgin caverns waiting for us in the great beyond.


Six AM came early as did Pat Mudd, who found us lamenting our lack of coffee filters and warm beverage. Pat was waiting for his son Andy we made plans to meet up later in the cave. Joe and I hit the drip line about 7:20 I think and disappeared into the darkness. I quickly noticed the difference in the water level in the cave at the second portage and couldn't believe the difference. Makes you wonder how it can drop that fast if the only place it can go is Ogre Drain. After tying up the horses at the junction Joe got his first taste of what it is to slog through Webster Cave mud as we started up towards the sump. Obviously we had to stop and see Parks Grotto and at the showerhead we busted out the camera for some photos. Joe had tried his rock climbing skills out on the shower and was upstairs when I got an idea. We took some very cool photos of the shower illuminated by Joe's Sten light. Here's the link. http://www.pbase.com/darklightimagery/various_webster_imagery


Parks Avenue seemed uncomfortably quiet when we returned from the racket of the grotto and made our way for the breakdown at lunch rock. Arriving we first explored the rooms to the far left up to the belly crawl at the far end, then we returned to thread the hole in the wall and see if Joe has what it takes to make a real Webster Caver. Dropping back into the stream I noted that the water was even higher than my last visit here in April. "See there where the ceiling drops almost to the water Joe?", I asked. "Follow Me". Up to our necks in the water we had to turn our heads sideways in a spot or two. For a first timer, Joe was showing he was cut from the right kind of cloth and found the passage fascinating. We came to the face of the Stargate where I demonstrated that what appears to be a shear vertical wall, what in fact is a sheer vertical wall only 3 feet to the right is in fact the disguise hiding what is currently the most frustrating passage in the cave.


"On the far side of this sump, virgin walking passages heading directly towards a 200 square mile karst plain are aching to be explored and surveyed. The south Webster rock quarry intersects an upper level borehole heading due East towards the plain, but is blocked by flowstone choked breakdown. The potential for discovery to the east is as rich as anywhere in the US, and right now, this is the only known way in. Our mission, our purpose for existing, is to find a way to drain this frickin pool and open the Stargate." I paused, lest the sermon was falling on deaf ears. True believers are hard to find, but I sensed the freshly pollinated imagination of a new disciple awakening to the magnitude of the potential for adventure, exploration and discovery waiting in the Great Beyond. If so, that excitement and enthusiasm could be tapped to start moving some rock!


We carefully followed the pool downstream to the first potential blockage. At most we decided no more than one inch of opportunity existed here. On the current map this section shows as a gravel and stone bed but in the higher water conditions, it was all but covered. We worked for about the next 2 hours, finally deciding about 1 foot of elevation potential exists just across Parks Avenue from the lunch rock and for a season attacked the rocks and gravel like we'd have the pool drained before sundown. We'd brought a long handled digging spade, a crowbar, a military shovel and Andy Mudd brought a rock hammer. It slowly became apparent to us that to make the kind of difference we needed at least one if not several very major rocks needed to be elsewhere, rocks that nothing short of a backhoe or dynamite were going to phase. So close and yet so far; so much of our problem exists in an area of no more than about 150 square feet, yet full of boulders of a size that no man will budge on his own. We stopped to eat while my brain kept looking for an answer. Alas, nothing I can come up with seems feasible. Short of major blasting, the Stargate continues as the Keymaster as well.


By the time we finished eating and I snapped some photos since my camera was out, it was time for us to leave if Joe was going to make his date at the symphony with his girlfriend in Paducah that night so we packed up and out. Once we got in the yaks, Joe made some comment about the "Death March" down Parks Avenue. All I can say is "If you haven't made the trip without a yak, you don't know what your missing. ;-)" I could not believe how much the water had dropped in the 4 short hours we'd been down Parks Avenue. The ledge in the streambed just below Parks was completely out of the water. We saw a very interesting dynamic taking place at one of the portages as it was transitioning from underwater to above, seeing how the silt and sand there moves from one side of the portage to the other each time the water direction changes with each rising and falling cycle.


Dragging the yaks up to the main entrance was easier than I anticipated and having two of us to carry them up the karst head made that relatively painless as well; Strenuous but definitely worth the effort. Joe had a great time and wants to go again.

End Of Deep Impact Version 2.0

I didn't mention it in the trip report, but we did meet up with Pat Mudd and his son Andy while we were trying to dig to China. Pat and Andy did a very long trip; Pat Wrote:

[My son Andy and myself did a blind fish counting expedition
yesterday. We went the entire length of Webster avenue. Counted 93
fish. Water was clouded up to Parks with out seeing any fish.

Went down Parks and met up with the Pee Bee Rock Excavating LLC.
Their ambitions exceeded the Grand Canyon project. From there to the
sump. The water level was over the Shark's nose. From there to the
end of Parks to retrieve the shovel I left in a tight crawl last
year. We went back to Webster Avenue and continued the fish count.
Reached the Lower River passage that was sumped but no whirlpool. We
planned on breaching the dam next. Now that when we zoned out into a
mindless travel. Before another word was said between us we arrived
at Marathon Crawl. I was wondering where the water crashing noise
was coming from because I was sure we have not traveled that far.
Also I did not complain about anything during that time. Now that's
a record!

Well we checked the time and it was already 1900 EST. So with two
hour travel to reach the exit we aborted our mission. We need to set
a date to bee-line to the dam with only one goal for the day. Find
very virgin cave!]


I also asked Joe Martin if he wanted to share some of his experience about his first trip into Webster. Joe Wrote:

[In a word, my first trip into earth's belly was surreal. In two words, it was frikken awesome. I can distinctly remember floating down Webster avenue and the ceiling opens up…"holy shit" I'm surrounded by a vastness that's strangely comforting, all of a sudden I'm so very small, and not a whole lot of B/S matters at this particular moment. I click my headlamp (pardon the lack of lingo) up to grade three. The midnight blue ceiling gradually decays to the surface of Mars. Purely indescribable. My highs came in short spurts, however. In spite of taking it all in, I was periodically attempting to piece together just where the hell I had just been and how to find my way back out. My thoughts drifted from the purest white noise of awe to "I COULD BECOME A FOSSIL DOWN HERE!!!" In the end, Pat successfully navigated us through what at times seemed like a different planet all together. Five hours later, I'm sitting on the first balcony in button-down and pair of slacks listening to Gustav Mahler's Funeral Procession, and dreaming about the inside of Webster.]

C'ya at the cave. pb OH! send money for shirts to Steve if you haven't done so yet!

[Darklight]

Five hours later, I'm sitting on the first balcony in button-down and pair of slacks listening to Gustav Mahler's Funeral Procession, and dreaming about the inside of Webster.]

PeeBee, we have him..........................

[worldnaut]

Yes, I'd say the call has him bit! He has this framed in his office. ;-)