John,
That's a harrowing story! I can't think of having been in
such a desperate situation myself. Getting back out must have been
interesting. Glad you survived!
Mark
At 07:21 PM 3/12/2014, John Corcoran wrote:
Mark,
Your Deer Spring Cave crawl reminds me of a trip in the 1960s to the caves
on Cave Creek in the Pecos Wilderness in New Mexico. Alan Hill, Carol Hill,
and I had heard about these caves and knew it would be a beautiful hike
(cave's entrances were around 9,500 feet in elevation as I recall) so
decided to check things out. The first thing we spotted was an apparent
resurgence in the creek bed and then up-canyon found the entrance to the
first cave. About 1/3 of the water flowing down the creek (fed by
snowfields higher up in the wilderness -brrr!) went into this entrance which
is about 3-4 feet in diameter. Alan Hill, being an experienced wet caver of
Mammoth/Flint Ridge fame, said he had seen two other entrances just like
this back east and both led to caves with over ten miles of passage, so he
immediately got his cave gear together (including coveralls on top of three
pairs of thermal underwear) and entered the cave. Carol told me not to let
Alan get too far ahead or go alone, so I got my gear together (coveralls,
one pair of thermal underwear (not as prepared as was Alan!), and a
military-style web belt with a pouch on each side to carry water and other
supplies) and entered the crawl. The cave descends through a series of
small waterfalls at constrictions along the passage - a series of stair
steps with successively tighter pinches as you go downhill. I did not see
Alan, so I hurried headfirst through the loud descent. I could see a faint
light shining on the surface of a pool at the bottom of the last little
waterfall In came to and, not sure I could turn around to go feet first,
stuck my arms and torso through the small opening and tried to touch the
floor of the pool. However, the water was deeper than I thought, so I tried
to back out and could not do so since I had nothing to push against. Then I
tried to finish going through the opening and jammed in the tight spot
thanks to the canteen pouches at my waist. I could not reach my hands past
my body to undo the belt and while struggling, noticed that I had almost cut
off the whole stream flow with my body and could feel the water backing up
above me. The water rose above my feet, and started flowing down inside my
coveralls and exiting at the neck right into my face like a fire hose,
making it difficult to breath and impossible to shout for help from Alan who
was at the end of the long, narrow room trying to dig out some logs from the
next constriction. Just when I thought my number was up, the water pressure
became high enough behind me to tear one of the pouches off the web belt and
I plunged down into the pool and up to my elbows in soft sediment.
Immediately surfacing to get a breath, I saw a big wave moving away from me
at roof level right towards Alan. When the wave reached the other end of
the room, I felt a big concussion and then the wave bounced back at me and
oscillated once more. I thought for sure I had injured or killed Alan since
I could not see him at all during the commotion, but when I started forward
to try to find him, his head popped up out of the water with a big grin on
his face!
Regards,
John
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark
Minton
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 3:56 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [SWR] A New Thread: Crawlways
Bill Tozer's post reminded me of an experience in Deer Spring Cave
in Nevada. It has a rapidly flowing stream in passage that alternates
between walking along the strike and crawls going updip. One of those crawls
was body tight in 46-degree water. One couldn't remain in one place for long
without backing up the water.
To avoid drowning you had to move forward a body length or so and then
squeeze to one side to let the accumulated water rush past.
There was the added complication of occasional cobbles that had to loosed up
and tossed to the side to allow passage. I've been in lots of low,
water-filled crawls where you had to move gently to avoid sending a wave
over your face, but that was the only one where you couldn't go too slowly.
Mark
At 03:16 PM 3/12/2014, [email protected] wrote:
>All:
>
>I've also been through the gun barrel in Knox Cave, NY. As Dwight
>mentioned it is tight and some crawling(?) on your side
>required. Interesting how some crawls get reputations. Another
>infamous crawl is the Blue Crawl in Tumbling Rock Cave, AL, not far
>from the NSS convention site. Of course there is a walking bypass to
>the crawl.
>
>I might add a crawl in water. I scrapped the ceiling with my back as I
>pushed the sand/gravel floor aside. There is only 2 inches of water,
>but it backs up when plugged with bodies. Don't drop you head as you
>will drown. No sleeping in this crawl. Riverside Cave, Indiana.
>
>Bill Tozer
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