Zicafoose Bolt Climb Report by Keith Sweeney

[cavescom]

Trip Date: April 27-29,2007
Photos at http://www.caves.com/zicfallsclimb
(6th Camp 3 Trip)
(2nd Camp 3 Overnight Trip)

Trip Participants:

Bob Kirk
Sandy Harrah
Keith Sweeney

Friday, 4-27-07
IN at 4:00pm
arrival at Camp 1 at 5:55pm
Radiator Rock(midway point)- 7:00pm
Camp 2- 8:45pm
Camp 3- 10:15pm
6hrs. 15mins. total travel time to Camp 3

Saturday, 4-28-07
Leave Camp 3 at 5:15pm
with arrival at Radiator Rock at 8:20pm
then reached Camp 1 at 9:55pm
Sunday, 4-29-07
Exit Cave at 12:35am
7 hrs. 20mins. Total travel time from Camp 3 to entrance

Total Trip 32 hrs. 35 mins.

Sometimes When You’re Tired , Muddy, & Deep In A Cave, Beer & Bowling On A Saturday Night Sounds Pretty Good!

By: Keith Sweeney

Since none of us really liked bowling, we decided to bolt climb the waterfall deep inside Zicafoose this past weekend. It had been fourteen months since Bob, Andrew, and I first breached "Grapple Hook Rock" and laid eyes on the vastness of this watery underworld. A place of power, of past water power. Upper no-go north-trending Paleo to the right and a large sloping pile of large-block breakdown straight ahead. Fluted buttresses supporting an eighty foot ceiling emitting a splashing waterfall and shadows large enough to..............well, hopefully to enter...............We made our plans right then and there to bolt climb our way into that shadowy unknown.
Bob Kirk and I had already made a couple of in/out gear-push trips to Camp 3--bolts, hangers, rope, accessories (quantities and lengths calculated). Camp 3 had also been staged with air mattresses, spare clothing, food, mini-stove, your basic overnight necessities plus a few amenities.

We have a project;
We have a plan;
Now we need the personnel to pull it off!

We had scheduled this trip a few times in the preceding months, but since our Zicafoose explorations have taken us deeper and deeper into the cave, trip times have lengthened, commitment levels increased, but the list of willing personnel decreased to a core group consisting of Mark Passerby, Bob Kirk, and me. The logistics of bringing together three people from three separate states for these extended trips proved difficult to schedule. I can get to the cave in an hour, Bob a little over an hour, but Marks nine hour drive, recent marriage, and subsequent impending birth of a new child is a prioritizing challenge we cavers of the 21st century can surely understand. I wish him and Salwa the best of health and circumstances and eagerly await his in-cave presence.
Sometime during these failed scheduling attempts, Bob's fiancée, Sandy, renewed her interest in caving and she and Bob made some incrementally deeper forays into Zicafoose as practice sessions to gauge her physical and psychological fortitude. Throw in some strength training at the local gym, and a new, much needed third member of our team emerged..........Sandy said she was ready for Camp 3! Now, we had the "man" power to carry, push, and drag the drill, rechargeable batteries, etc. and solve the mystery of that high shadowy void!
We met Friday afternoon, dressed out and entered the mildly exhaling mouth of Zicafoose at 4:00pm. The entrance thermometer registered 44 degrees F. as we started our descent. The ceiling and walls dripped and glistened with excess water, and all the bats were lined up in a row.
We made very respectable times to Camp 1 (considering 25lb. packs for Bob and I, and Sandy's weighing in around 15lbs.), Radiator Rock (half-way point), and Camp 2, finally dragging and crawling our way up and over into Camp 3 at 10:30pm.
Bob's music played as the three of us busied ourselves with snacking, sleeping arrangements, ibuprofen for our backs, and placing candles under our coveralls legs to dry out for the night. A little after midnight, I heard the first snore and shortly thereafter, I joined in.
At 7:00am (Saturday), Bob was up boiling water for our only hot meal of the trip. Garbage bags were opened and twisted shut multiple times and the packs were repacked for the days work ahead. We down-sloped into the stream canyon heading west and made note of the slightly higher than normal stream level. Sure enough, the round pool of water was deeper than the last trip, barring our access to the 7ft. high Raccoon Falls climb. Our progress was slowed considerably as we discussed ways to cross and remain dry. We even thought of using valuable battery power to bolt a foot line across the pool. Instead, we opted to go back down stream searching for and finding an upclimb route through Senate Hall to a fixed rope (from previous trip) circumventing the stream route entirely, leaving us virtually at the base of our bolt project and at least for the moment..........dry.
Packs off, harnesses on, the metallic clink of gear being sorted could barely be heard through the thundering pummel of "Which Way Falls". We were ready to "git 'er done".
After scoping for the best bolt line, we determined we could save battery power and gear by continuing up the breakdown slope and traversing right on a sloping mud shelf, thus saving 20-25 feet of vertical ascent up the more obvious line beside the falls.
The shelf was narrow and sloping and took a couple attempts (with a knee spot) by Bob for me to belly crawl to a place wide enough to drill in our first piece of protection. I bolted the traverse around the corner and Bob lowered me. I took over belay duty and Bob started the vertical line of bolts working methodically and steadily up the slightly overhanging limestone face. The blue-gray dust from the drill and the solid ping of the hammer sending the bolt home reassured his safety as Bob included a 1/4 inch bolt occasionally into the line of 3/8 bolts to lessen drill time thus saving battery usage. He bolted to within 20ft. of the top and thought about continuing, but to do so would have put us well past our reported exit time and we still had a long tiring trip out. Before lowering, Bob examined the remainder of the route for a bolt count and noticed that the water, which from the beginning always appeared to be exiting from the North, was falling from the South. Or was it coming from the North, curving around, and falling off the South lip? North,.. South,…. or maybe even West? What's going on up there?” Which Way” does that upper passage continue?
We reassembled at Camp 3, stashed vertical gear and sleeping bags, thereby committing ourselves to a return trip and crawled up and out of Camp heading to the surface. The trip out was fairly uneventful and we all had to dig deep for hidden energy for the last half of the trip.

We did not complete the bolt-up, and we still do not know the direction or size of the passage in those lofty shadows, but we worked as a team, made good in-cave decisions, and of course did try (we can always take up bowling when we get old!).

Seven hours and twenty minutes after leaving Camp 3, three exhausted cavers exited the blackness of the cave and slipped unnoticed into the night.

Thank you, Sandy Harrah for making this trip possible!

[MUD]

GREAT trip report...you Zicafoose cavers are my kinda people. Keep on a pushin'....hardcore cavers scoop hardcore booty!

[graveleye]

always good to hear what is going on at Zicafoose. How often do you guys get to go to the cave?

[Squirrel Girl]

They beat the snot out of me in that cave. I tip my hat to them for being very tough and working very hard.

Cheers!

[cavescom]

I haven't been going too much lately but will start back again next month. June 10th Bob, Keith, Sandy and I will do a shorter trip to an area that Bob and I surveyed. We surveyed along the top of this canyon and at times could see 20+' down....we had good air until we took a sharp turn and lost the canyon below us. So we will begin poking down that canyon to try to find a much shorter route to the area noted on the map as Mike's Crack. Mike's Crack has the main stream flowing in it but become very sumpy like before progress stopped. Our shortcut if we find it will actually drop us in more South of Mikes Crack and could open up a whole new section of cave that I know is there.....so we will see.
Then on the 15th & 16th we will finish the bolt climb at the North end. There is still a lot of limestone to the North which if we can find our way up and at it could open some remarkable surprises up......the passage we are in now for instance is heading straight for the valley. I am very familiar with this part of the valley and estimate that the other cave system in Raders Valley in the lower limestone comes very close to where we are heading so if they were to connect this would be the most likely place. The air patterns in the cave and on the surface also are quite complex but massive....leading me to infer that something more complex is in fact occurring so perhaps we will cross the division between the two drainage systems and open up something sensational. Maybe someday we will be saying we are heading to Camp 6.....12 hours from the entrance :)
Mark Passerby, Caves.com

[cavescom]

Won't be long and she will be off to West Virginia caving in Zic with us :)

Mark Passerby, Caves.com

[adleedy]

congradulations on the baby mark

nick flora invited me down to help with zic, ive just neglected the one hour drive from my house down there , perhaps next month

[cavescom]

contact me anytime we will be doing some good trips in June mark@caves.com
Mark

[caverdoc]

Mark
Those mom and baby photos are precious!
You look like a young Dennis Quaid (better he than Randy Q...)
Congratulations!
My baby girl is going to be 3 in December. Her older brother is 6 in August and already quite the caver.
Doc Kennedy

OK, I'm done hijacking this thread...