by Ronaldo » Jun 28, 2007 12:24 am
Hi All,
I would like to expand on Myotis' comments about IN caves. They mentioned Parkers Pit, a really tough cave, I wanted to elaborate on the famed S-bend and Z-bend squeezes await you after the pendulum into the lead. These are for thin people.... This cave is featured in the con7 guidebook.
Ah Yes, and Hanging Rock Drop, a cave that has the feel of a TAG Ridge cave that's going down, It has a tight spot that is very tricky about 2/3 of the way to the bottom. It is like a barbed hook, when heading in through the squeeze, your chest is compressed by a smooth slope and you exhale and ease over it and pop through the tight spot, but on the way out you are pushing against the grain and your body weight is pushing you down into the barb of the fishook. I have a larger chest and I was compressing rib bones to get out. HRD Also a featured cave in the guidebook.
Sure, we have easy caves and easy pits featured, but we also have a led trip to Two Bit Pit Cave (Trip Leader Sean Lewis) mentioned earlier in this thread by Bruce White, one of IN's toughest trips. A trip to the bitter end is 20+ hours by the experienced. Seans' trip will not go through the 1200ft water crawl. He plans on stopping after bottoming the 6th (last) drop, which is the nicest drop in the cave. At the 1992 IN convention we led a trip there to show some TAG folks our discovery, Marion Smith, Marc Tremblay (sp?) Theresa Williams are a few of the folks I remember being on the trip, Marion is still having nightmares about that trip. Not too often do you see Marion unwilling to head out by himself when he is ready to leave.
After the third pit in Two Bit, there is a canyon crawl series where you are canyoning 30 ft. up in a wide spot in a tall canyon, 3 places the canyon gets wide exposing you to the fall, and several other places its' wide enough to travel safely but your pack could still drop through to the bottom. or just wedge part way down where it would not be retrievable, eventually the floor fills the canyon mid way and you come to a tight canyon crawl with 2 tight spots, the Terminator and the Eliminator. I always dieted before the trip so that I was 175 lbs or less, I would want to lose 10 to fit now.
I once was stuck behind Rusty Riley for 5 hours while he tried to get out of the canyon, moving about 25 feet an hour. He would say, my arms, they have no strength left, I was behind saying, FIND THE STRENGTH..... That cave really zaps you on the way out after surveying beyond the water crawl. You have to carry 2 packs through the tight spots, one for your wet suit, one for your mud caked vertical gear, Oh, and the ropes.... whoops, I might be saying too much, I don't want to ruin all the surprises.
At Convention, 2 of IN's longest Caves will have trips led, the Binkley system and the Lost River Cave System are both over 20 miles long and still being pushed.
Jay's Pit Cave is a multi drop that has 5 drops. Gory Hole, an hour North of the con7 camp is our deepest free drop at 140'. There are many pits, many as deep as 100', and multi drops within a half hour's drive from camp. There are also easy to access horizontal caves. We will feature several led trips daily, so come to IN and Get Underground!!!!
See you there!!!
Ron Adams, Cave Information for Convention 2007