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Multi organization Soldiers
Cave trip
After recently being nominated and voted in as a director on the Western Cave Conservancy
board of directors I realized that I was going to have to start dedicating a lot
more of my caving time to WCC projects and meetings, (which is not always a good
thing). So when the next WCC board meeting was scheduled for Sunday April 23rd ,
I knew that I had to figure out how to incorporate a cave trip into the weekend.
It would be a crime to drive all the way to Sequoia National Park and not go caving,
so I contacted fellow WCC member Dan Snyder and asked him if he would like to help
me get a trip together for Saturday. He quickly replied and agreed that a cave trip
was a great idea, so after failed attempts to get a trip to Church Cave in Kings
Canyon (it turned out the road was still closed from snow) Dan contacted Dave Bunnell
and asked if he would be interested in leading a trip to Soldiers Cave. Luckily Dave
answered and said yes, so Dan and I made the invitations to some others who ended
up being Martin Haye (Treasurer of WCC), Tom LaFrank (Columbia Grotto), Tony Williams
(Columbia grotto), Dave Bunnell (Editor of the NSS news, Columbia and Motherlode
grotto Member) Dan Snyder (Secretary for WCC) and myself. We decided that Tony, Tom,
Dave and myself would leave Friday afternoon and carpool together and Dan and Martin
would meet us at the Soldiers camping area.
So on friday afternoon Tom, Tony and Dave were all at my house by 12:30pm and we
loaded my truck with all the gear and were on the road just before 1:00pm. The drive
went quickly and the four of us had camp set up and dinner cooking by 6:00pm. The
night was spent sharing stories and doing the usual possible next trip planning that
we all seem to do when we get together. We were all in bed by 11:00pm, while Dan
and Martin were just leaving to meet us. They arrived around 3:30 AM
After waking up and crawling out of my tent I noticed that Tony and Dan were the
only others out and about, Dave emerged shortly after with Martin just waking up
a short time later. At about 8:00 AM I attempted to wake Tom up and only got some
mumbles and grumbles, so at 8:30AM I woke Tom up again after realizing he still had'nt
gotten up yet. It turned out he had gotten really sick over the night and decided
that he would'nt be going, so the rest of us gathered our gear and got ready to head
to the cave. I guess watching us all get our cave gear together was too much for
Tom to handle so he asked if he could join us in a couple of hours in the cave. So
after getting a plan together to make it happen the five of us headed to the cave.
The walk was nice and cool with a constant mist in the air and low clouds over head.
On the way to the cave Tony and I were in the lead when Tony noticed a red Newt that
was along side the trail. So I took a minute to take some pictures and we were on
our way again. Shorty after we were in the cave with Tony rigging the cave as we
went. Everyone else followed and we were all down to the end of the rope drops in
an hour. The first place we went was the Aragon room so Dave could test out his new
close up photo set up. Half way through the photo shoot Tony met up with Tom who
thought he felt good enough to cave. About an hour was spent taking pictures in the
Aragon room and afterwards the the group headed off for Ruby's route. Everyone except
Dave made it through the tight 90 deg. turn at the start of Ruby's route, he could'nt
get his legs to make the sharp turn so he and Martin went around to meet us at the
other end. In between splitting up myself and the others we completed Ruby's route
with lots of picture taking and Tony leading the way on to meet the others. A short
time later the group was all back together and continued on towards the lake with
lots of pictures taken in between. As it turned out though, Tom was still rather
sick and was becoming rather weak quickly and had started to vomit. Luckily he had
brought some bags with him for that and other emergency bodily releases. So I decided
that we should start for the surface. The group was all fine with that, so we started
out. Myself, Tony and Tom were the first ones out with Dan, Dave and Martin being
gracious enough to de-rig the cave for us. Everyone arrived back to camp by 7:30PM
and dinner was quickly made and consumed, which afterwards Dan and Martin decided
to go into Three Rivers for a nice warm and dry hotel while the rest of us stayed
and soaked up the rain until midnight when we finally retreated to our tents for
warmth and dryness.
Sunday morning everyone was up and about by 8:00 AM (including Tom) who was feeling
much better. My WCC meeting was not until 12:00PM at the Three Rivers visitors center
so Dave decided to take a nature hike with Tony and Tom going to check the condition
of the Clough Cave gate which is commonly vandalized. After checking the gate Tony
and Tom met up with me back at the truck, I had been experimenting with my camera
taking pictures of the stream and a Newt I found while looking around some boulders.
After hearing about the new Newt Tony decided he would like to get some pictures
of it because he had not gotten any of the first one we saw on the way to the cave
saturday. (his camera was buried in his gear). So the three of us headed back to
the spot I had last seen the Newt and could not find him there. So after jokingly
estimating the speed of a Newt and the time I had last seen him we calculated it
to be 22 feet that he could have traveled and as freak luck would have it we found
him approx. 20' away with a larger one six feet from him (or her?). So Tony and I
took some more pictures and the three of us headed back to the truck with Dave showing
up about ten minutes later. It was now 11:00AM so we headed for the meeting. After
dropping me off at the meeting Tom, Tony and Dave took the truck into town and ate
lunch at the River Inn. Meanwhile myself and the other directors were waiting for
Marianne Russo (President of WCC) to arrive, but it seemed that she had some confusion
and arrived at 1:00PM thinking that was actually the meeting time. With the meeting
lasting until 4:45 PM, myself and the others in my group were eager to get on the
road and head for home. After a quick stop for fuel and food the group arrived at
my house at 8:30 PM and the normal goodbyes were said and everyone left for there
homes.
It was another great cave trip with lots of great memories and a great group of cavers.
Mike
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