Webster Cave System, KY
Innuendo Survey
Well, my morning began the usual way: waking up about two hours too early, even for the drive I had ahead of me. I finally crawled out of bed before the alarm went off, slinked into the kitchen and started the coffeepot. An hour later, at 0400, the coffee still hadn't taken effect, and I found out my Jeep heater wasn't working properly. That remedied itself after about 30 miles (though I suspect I’ll be tossing some cash at this problem), and soon I was well on my way to meet Pat Mudd, Ben Hutchins, and Mark Phillips at the Webster Field House. Along the way Mark phoned to say he was a tad under the weather and was going to sit this trip out.
Webster Avenue at Epitome Lake
This was to be our 2006 Thanksgiving Expedition. One thing we hadn't counted on when planning this was the propensity for WCCSG'rs to want spend time with their relatives rather than the cave. So, many of the cavers who wanted to attend were called away to land's end to sup and spend time where it counts. Nevertheless, we had a small contingent ready to attack the far reaches of the System
We hadn't yet decided exactly what the goal for the trip was. Pat Mudd had been in the cave the day before with his son for a 'fun' trip (I can't for the life of me really recall what these are like). Ben Hutchins was in town from DC for the holidays, and I had taken time off from work to attend. Many ideas were tossed around: finish Marathon Crawl, polish off Upper Giger, start a new lead. Since decidedly the largest of the cavers that had planned to attend, Mark, was not among us, we opted to go and try and finish the Innuendo Lead off Necronom. This is not to say that Mark is too robust to go there; suffice to say it is a lead for cavers who are congenitally "smallish" in stature and build. No basketball players!
Innuendo (photo by Pat Mudd)
We all arrived at the Webster Field House around 0800. Unable to secure the key from the landowner, we headed on over to the cave and suited up. No key meant some gear inside (Dave's new paper and my waterproofed set of instruments) was to be unavailable. Ben surprised us by arriving kayak in tow. I left mine back at the house. I really have not decided whether a yak is really any easier than just slogging through the cave. If one didn’t have to bring it with each time, it might not be so bad. Perhaps just chaining it to a tree in the karst head…
Due to a “two right handed glovesâ€
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