I was trying to think of what I could contribute to the crawlway thread and at first nothing much came to mind. Most of my tight crawl ways were in pretty pedestrian places that many others have also experienced: Wonderland, portions of Hicks/Wind Cave, S&M Crawl in Lech, Silver Bullet, etc. However, my wife Sarah just reminded me of the two DAY/two MILE crawl I made out of Lech with a broken ankle in 1993. Probably not a world record, but significant, nonetheless, and full of trials and tribulations.
In essence, I broke my ankle at The Leaning Tower of Lechuguilla in the Western Borehole by slipping on what I swear were ball bearings placed on the rock I was walking on. First thought was "Oh, no, not another Emily rescue" because of the number of people and expense of getting her out of the cave two years earlier. After appropriate ministrations of a splint-like device on the ankle, I tried to hobble my way down the passage with an arm over the shoulders of two fellow cavers. That didn't work at all after only two steps, so I realized the only way to get out was to start crawling. As long as my ankle wasn't bearing any weight, it wasn't very painful. Fortunately, the start of the crawl was in very soft, fluffy material in the middle of the trail. This didn't seem too daunting and I turned around and swung my arm forward and said "Come on, let's go". Let the fun begin…. By and large, the crawling itself wasn't too bad most of the time. There were several places where climbing up exposed areas that one could normally traverse without difficulty presented a real problem. Exposure was the worst problem as a further fall could have created excruciating pain and further breakage to other other parts of my body. A belay helped significantly, but it was still difficult to climb some of these areas without full use of my foot for balance and climbing. Another problem was the vertical rope work involved throughout the cave. The first experience was encountered where I exited the ABC'S Room and was back in the narrower passage that would lead me to Deep Seas Camp where my personal gear was located. In this location, I had to rappel down the passage nearly to the bottom and felt that it would be better to stay on rope for as long as possible. Since I had pretty much divvied up my gear to the 8 other people on the expedition, I was able to rappel down without any extraneous weight to throw me off balance. A Munter Hitch on a 'biner was all I needed for that portion. Corn Flakes Climb required the same method. In other areas where a handline was in place to pull yourself up, I used the rope with an ascender on it to keep me from falling backwards. By the time I reached Deep Seas, it seemed that I could still put on some more mileage on my knees and thought that the bottom of The Great White Way was doable as a place where I could safely bivvy for the night with a personal attendant in waiting. At that point, my camping and all remaining personal gear was being further divided amongst the participants and ferried up to the bottom of GWW. For some reason, Dan Legnini accompanied me most of the way up to GWW with no one else in the immediate area. When we reached the start of the Fortress of Chaos area, a huge block of gypsum that one has to ascend to the top and then back down the other side of, I had to crawl slowly and carefully to the summit. On the way up, I was pretty much looking at the ground right in front of me and just ahead of that position as there was really not much else to look at. At one point while staring at the trail just under my nose, I noticed a bit of darker colored material that obviously was once attached to the waffled boot pattern on the bottom of someone's boot. Not really a big deal, but something that stuck in my mind briefly. I continued climbing up the sheer face in front of me, rested briefly, talked with Dan, then continued crawling. On the way down, I noticed ANOTHER boot tread waffle stamp and thought "wow, this caver must have been in some pretty crappy passage to leave two of these impressions behind." It was at this point that I stopped, looked around and realized that I had made a U-turn at the summit of the hill and was crawling back INTO the cave, not out of it as planned. Even Dan didn't realize this at first. Ye gods, I'd still be crawling inside that cave to this day had I not been able to realize my whereabouts!!! I had backtracked perhaps only a hundred feet or so, but given where I was and how tired I was getting, it seemed like miles! I did finally reach the foot of GWW about an hour later and spent the night in less than ideal camping facilities, but I did get a good night's sleep. The following morning I woke up around 8 AM, had breakfast and had to rearrange my climbing gear for going up the GWW. I normally use the Mitchell System which for me is the best in the world. However, the Mitchell requires two good feet and arms, but I was lacking in at least one important appendage due to the accident. I wound up switching my lower ascender from my left foot (where the broken ankle had occurred) to my seat harness and looped a rope around my neck to keep the ascender in an upright position, much like a torse harness keeps a kroll in an upright position using the Frog system. The remaining gear stayed pretty much like it does for the Mitchell. In effect, it became like a Texas system, using one good leg to lift me up the rope with the seat harness locking on while I raised my leg. I must say, I was glad to have familiarity with a lot of systems to be able to cobble together a climbing system that would work for me under the circumstances. The versatility of the Mitchell system made it easier for me to climb up the short free hanging portion of the bottom of the GWW, then switch over to climb the remaining sloped portion. The interim section between the roped portions was undoubtedly the most difficult part of the entire crawl/climb as it took place in a steeply sloped pancake portion of the 300 foot climb. A belay was MOST DEFINITELY needed there and I was certainly glad to have it. Perhaps the most difficult part of the crawl was going through The Rift. By this time, my knees were not overly happy with crawling, in part because I was using cheap athletic knee pads, the kind made with heavy nylon that tended to abrade the skin. As such, I tried crab walking at times to take some weight off my knees. However, getting through The Rift was particularly difficult near the end when heading out of the cave. It narrows down and has some climbing spots in it that were difficult to navigate. Once through that area, there was still the long uphill climb, especially trying to negotiate Glacier Bay where all hands and feet are usually needed to climb up the gypsum wall near the top. Somewhat earlier in the day, I had sent out two cavers to notify the Cave Resources Office that I had broken my ankle, was self-rescuing but needed a pair of crutches, if available. Once on the surface, I certainly had no desire to crawl all the way from the entrance of Lech back to the vehicles, about another mile away. It would likely have been even more difficult to do so with sharper rocks, cactus, snakes, scorpions, etc. I also didn't want to panic the CRO in case they felt that they needed to mount another Emily style rescue. As such, the cavers I sent out were somewhat vague in how much they told the Park employees about my condition. The intention was not cover up anything, but more to indicate that while serious, all was under control and no need to call out the rescue cavalry. By the time I finally made the last climb out of the entrance drop to daylight, Dale Pate and a Park Law Enforcement Officer had managed to bring out the rolling stretcher that Emily had been carried out on two years earlier. My first reaction at seeing the LEO with his gun in his holster was that they were going to shoot me for causing more problems for the Park by breaking my ankle!! Emily's rescue had caused all kinds of cries to shut down the cave due to its dangers and liabilities, etc. Fortunately, that was not the case this time around so my execution was delayed indefinitely… Since they had been unable to find crutches anywhere in the Park, probably due to liability issues, I was happy to get the ride back to the vehicles in the rolling stretcher. Once back at the huts, I did everything in the prescribed cavers' order: opened a beer, took a long hot shower. drove into town to Lucy's and bought pitchers of margaritas all around for the cavers who helped me crawl out of the cave, then finally went to the hospital around 11 PM to learn that I had broken the fibula just above my ankle. Next morning, I went to the local orthopedic surgeon who told me I had a ten day window of opportunity to have it operated on to reset the bone and put a plate with screws on to hold everything in place. My insurance company didn't want to pay for the operation in Carlsbad and as such, I made an appointment to have it done back in Maine when I got home about six days later. Hey, no point in missing out on a Lech trip just because of a mere broken ankle…. As such, I became a VERY minor celebrity of sorts for having made the extreme crawl out of Lech earlier in the week. I am happy to give up my record for long distance crawling to anyone else who wants it!! Peter Jones
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