Today turned out to be a very long day for me. I left work at 2:00pm, came home and finished gathering my gear. My flight took off at 7:05pm from DIA. I had to take care of Penny before I could take off to the airport. I had arranged for Sandra to take Penny overnight, Jess to pick Penny up from Sandra's apartment, and Jess to take Penny to the PetHotel south of downtown. With my gear and dog in the truck, I picked up Sandra from work at about 5:05pm. Quickly, I drove her home and left her with Penny. I hustled to DIA to catch my flight. Luckily, I had checked in while still at the office and the security line was practically non-existent. I made it in plenty of time. With my Jimmy John's sandwich in my pocket, I sat and waited to board. For those of you who know me, you know the sandwich didn't make the plane. It's always a long flight when you are excited to see a friend you haven't seen in a long time, and sure enough, it was a long flight. I tried reading, watching the plane tracking on the little screen in front of me and sleeping. Nothing was making this flight go faster. I finally landed just before midnight, EST, and like clockwork, Hector called me and told me he was tired of waiting on me and was just leaving the airport and heading back to Oxford. This was not good news for me. Thankfully, he was joking around. He had just arrived at DAY and was waiting for me. To make a long drive story short, we did some catching up on the ride home.
Friday, 1/25/2008 - Day 2 - Oxford, OH
I've forgotton how cold it is in Southern Ohio in January. As Hector & I walked from his apartment down to the Geological Sciences Building, my face was approaching glaciation. Today was the day I had planned to wake up and head down to Carter Caves, however; Hector had class all day. We didn't make it out of Oxford until the early evening, so I decided to fill my day by taking in Miami University. The Science Library was spectacular. I caught an article in Geophysics and surfed the web for a while. I also made a visit to the Karl E. Limper Geology Museum in the basement of the Geology Building. It was spectacular. Check out the link I've posted for more details. The day was not moving very fast at all and I still needed to find some fuel for my backpacking stove. I strolled over to the muOhio Rec Center's Outdoor Pursuits office in hopes of finding it. Nada. In fact, I'm not sure they actually sell anything there. So it was back to the Geology Building for a quick nap while waiting for Hector to finish class. After a few stops in town, we finally made it out of Oxford. Luckily, in Hamilton, OH (just north of Cincy) we came across a Dick's Sporting Goods. They had the fuel and a few other miscellaneous items we needed. After a three hour drive, a sub of the day (tuna) at subway, the purchase of three bundles of wet wood, and a stop at Kroger, we made it to Carter Cave State Park. Registration was pretty straightforward--Sign in, check our trip status for the weekend, and picked up or Crawlathon T's (white of course). I'm still trying to figure out why they insist on making Crawlathon T's white year after year. Giving a caver a white t-shirt just doesn't make any sense. The rest of the night was quite eventful. First of all, it was really cold. Probably down around 0-5 deg F. We had two things to do. 1) Set up camp and 2) build a fire. Two things that sound pretty simple. The fire was our first challenge. Everything was wet, even the "dry" wood we picked up on the way down there. We spent so much time trying to produce a flame. By the time we got it started, it was pretty late and we were freezing cold. Somehow the tent got set up before the fire was actually started. All in all, it was a good night.
Saturday, 1/26/2008 - Day 3
The alarm was set for 6:30. Our trips started at 8:00am. We were so exhausted from the previous day's travel and camp setup that we didn't actually get out of our bags until almost 7:30am. Our bags were all packed for caving, with exception to a few minor items, but we were ready to go for the most part. The big thing was eating breakfast before venturing out all day on a trip. This is where things go interesting. Hector started the truck and I lit the stove to boil water for instant oatmeal. By the time the water was boiling, it was 7:45am and we needed to go or we were going to miss our trips. We shared the pot of oatmeal, which was a five packet combination of apple/cinnamon & maple with brown sugar, as we drove down the road to the lodge. I'm sure from an outsiders perspective, we looked pretty funny eating oatmeal out of a steaming hot pot while driving down the road, but it was hot and we were cold and hungry...and late. Thankfully, we both made our trips. I can't speak for Hector because we did not cave together Saturday, but I had a great day.
Trip 1-Vertical 101
My only for the day was not in a cave, but in the cliffs directly behind the lodge. Unbeknow to me at time, my trip didn't start until 9:00am, even though the schedule said 8:30am. At 8:45am, I became concerned when there was no announcement for Vertical 101. I thought I had missed it. It turns out it was meeting downstairs in a large room at 9:00am. Vert 101 was taught by a few members ofDayton Underground Grotto, Dayton, OH. I showed up in full cave gear because I didn't know if we were going to be in a cave, classroom, or cliff. All I knew was that wherever I was, it was either going to 52 deg F or colder. After about an hour of classroom instruction regarding to critical rigging angles and general gear setup and safety, we made our way out to the cliffs. The instructors had rigged four ropes over the 100 foot cliff earlier that morning. We didn't get a lot accomplished in the morning session because, as it turned out, four of the group students had never been on rope. This was to be their first repel. These cliffs are not necessarily the ideal place for someones first repel. It's not the height, but there was a severe lip at the top of the cliff that you had to manuever over before making your way down the rope. A combination of manuevering over the lip then soft-tying yourself off to reset the ropepad that was displaced when you began your repel is what made this a difficult first for about half of the students. By the time everyone repelled over the lip and to the canyon bottom once, it was practically lunch time. I ran into Hector at lunch. He was hanging out in the lodge waiting for his next trip to take off. I decided I needed more weather-proof gear so I traded my cave suite for my mountaineering clothes and gave Hector my cave suit for his afternoon trip. The afternoon portion of Vert 101 was a lot more enlightening than the morning session. We repelled over the lip and practiced getting out of jam using a prusik. We also practiced changing over from ascention to repel and passing knots or rebelaying around a bolt hanger. I learned from the instructors and they learned from me as well. I do things a little differently than Dayton Underground or the Cincy Grotto teach, so we had a mutual learning experience. To stay warm, we would jump on rope and ascend out of the canyon the drop back in for more rope work. I met up with Hector again around 5:00pm and instead of going to the squeezebox competition, we went on a beer run. We were both tired and in need of a cold one. Again, a simple task that sounds really easy turned into a forty mile extravaganza of bluegrass music and fun. The nearest gas station, and as it turn out the entire county, was dry. We quickly found this out as we walked into the station and the attendant pulled the largest grin of satisfaction I've seen in a while as he muttered the words "Dry County, Drink Pepsi". Well, back to Kroger we both thought and hoped that the next county wasn't dry as well. Good news, it wasn't. The next obsticle was making the purchase. Both of us have an out-of-state drivers license; mine from Colorado and his from Arizona. To top that, Hector's liscense expires in 2044, which automatically causes red flags to fly. I think the attendant thought we were from the future or maybe from outer space. I'm not really sure. Either way, she was througholy comfused, but we got the beer anyways and headed back to camp, rocking out to bluegrass the whole way.
That night was just about as eventful as the first night. All of our wood was wet and again, it was pretty cold. I cut my thumb with my pocket knife while slicing bark slivers off a semi-dry log. My hands were so cold though, I didn't realize I had cut myself and had been cutting myself over and over every time I made a slice. Not a good situation. Fortunately, they were very shallow cuts. To make a long story short, we got the fire going and it was wonderful. We boiled some water on the camp stove for our freeze dried dinners and made some hot coffee. The picture below will give you an idea of how cold Hector was even after the fire was started.
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