Saturday Aug. 17th,
Niagara Caves System
On Saturday Aug. 17th Mike W. and Tony W. left at 8:00am to head for the Niagara Caves System. They were to meet up with several others from Motherlode grotto and S.F.B.C grottos at 10:30am. They all met at the planned meeting area and in normal caving fashion all were there by 11:15am, 45 min. Late is not bad! The drive to the cave parking was short so all were ready and headed out to the cave location and were at the first of the caves by 11:45am.
There were 11 people in the group so they were to be divided up into 4 teams to survey,
2 teams would be in cave surveyors, 1 team would do the above ground and the last
would take the lead to push for possible entrances and would go a short distance
in them to check for passage and if they looked good they would mark them with cairns
and keep going. As the other teams were still getting ready Mike and his two partners
headed for what was believed to be the 2nd cave in the system.
This caves entrance has an approx. 20` Pit with a large boulder on the right hand
side that can be used to get down the exposure and avoid the pit . Mike had been
in this same pit the year before and made the climb down and out without any problems,
so he decided to go first. As he was making the long stretch to the boulder he had
his right arm caulked back behind him in an awkward position and just as his foot
was about to land on the boulder he was stretching for his collarbone snapped in
half! Luckily he was only about 4î from reaching the boulder when it happened so
there was no fall. After landing on the boulder Mike felt some pain in his right
shoulder and thought that his shoulder had dislocated ,but had immediately popped
back into place on landing.
So being curious to see more of this pit on this trip than on last years trip, he
kept going down noticing he could not put any weight on his arm whether it be next
to his side or up by his head. So after only about 60` of cave he decided to head
back out. Fortunately for Mike the others had rigged the entrance with an etrier
to make their descent easier than Mike's long stretch. That rigging made the exit
very simple compared to what it would have been. After exiting the cave Mike informed
the others that he had injured his shoulder and would just hang out and wait until
they finished their survey work.
After about 2 1/2 hours Mike could hear Tony, who was lead tape coming towards the
first exit. As Tony was making his exit Mike was pushing on his collarbone checking
it while discussing the odd lump on the collarbone, and as he pushed on it it actually
shifted about a 1/4î at which time you could hear and feel the bones move. So the
decision was made that Mike and Tony should probably head for home. That was the
end of the day for us, but the others carried on and at last estimate Niagara #2
was approx. 250` of passage. (Maybe I will see it next year) I am fine physically!
It will take 6-8 weeks to get most of the use of my arm back, but I promise, you
will see me at cave trips before then.
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McDonough (SoCal) and the bearded gent, Jonah Schachner (SFBC) © Copyright 2005
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