Lechuguilla: The 11th Hour
by Merrilee Proffitt

It was the last day of Peter Bosted's December Lech expedition. Out of a party of 12, only five of us remained in the cave. It had been a good--but not excellent--expedition, with a lot of resurvey, pushing climbing leads that didn't pan out, resketching passage, and the like. It was, however, one of the best trips I have ever been on as far as the group--every one of the members of the expedition was motivated, good humored, and easy going.

We were in the Chandalier Graveyard, doing leads within view of the Western Borehole; these leads had been tantalizing me every day on my "commute" through the Borehole, on the way to the Northwest Passage and beyond. The five of us split up into two teams: Lynne Jesaitis, Vivian Loftin, and myself (the Cavegrrlz chick team) and Art Fortini and Glen Malliet (the Boyz). We started surveying the first of Ray Keeler's famous 15 leads (I'm not kidding, there were 15 leads off the four short ropes going up). The first lead went nowhere (Viv didn't even go in to sketch) and then I popped my head into an unlabeled hole which went to -- well, duck walking passage, but it was better than the grim crawl that Lynne and I had just crammed ourselves into for three shots! We surveyed that out to about 100 feet, with lots of leads going off of it. On the way back to the ropes (and our appointed 8:30 meeting time with the Boyz) we were scooping and rating the leads off the surveyed passage. On this particular expedition, I had surveyed a lot of passage that should have not been marked as leads, and a quick look would have assertained that (without scooping too much!).

So I ducked into the hole which was a grim looking crystal lined crawl. Better see where it goes. I got to what appeared to be the end of the passage, but thought I should look a little further, just to be sure it REALLY ended. Rats! The passage turned to the left instead of ending, and with the same dimensions. But soon the passage got a little larger, and I even dropped down a small pit into walking passage for a minute. Then I crawled into a small chamber lined with gypsum with several ways out. Cool! I poked into one hole, and started to check another when I realized that I was, after all, NOT Don Coons (notorious scooper and caver par excellent), and that this was a good lead for another day (and another survey team).

The trouble was, that by this point I had taken so many twists and turns I was, for the first time in my caving career, lost! I tried to get out of the gypsum room one way, and found myself looking UP a climb into a room with a tall ceiling. Hmmm. Well, it's worth looking at, I decided. So up I went. I popped into a large room, definitly unlike the passage we had surveyed that day. I strained my eyes. I was in a gypsum coated canyon, with a non-downclimbable pit at my feet. No blue flagging, no orange flagging, and most importantly, no footprints in evidence in the snow.

I went back the way I came, and in desperation, started pounding a rock against the wall. Viv, fortunately, had noted the lead I had been checking (she and Lynne were wondering where I had gotten off to at 8:25!) and came after me. We established voice contact and I met up with her in the passage.

"We're late to meet the guys."

"Yeah, sorry, I was totally confused. Hey, I popped into a big room while I was lost."

"You did? Can you get back to it? Let's take a look."

Viv industriously left hunks of flagging tape behind as we made our way to the room. By the light of Viv's halogen, we could now CLEARLY see there were no footprints or flagging. I also noted a parallel fissure that MIGHT bypass the downclimb. It certainly seemed to head in that direction for quite a ways.

"Yup, we're going to survey this. We are NOT going back to camp."

We headed back to the junction and met up with the Boyz. We agreed that in the interest of time (we still wanted to head out early the next morning) we would stay with our same teams. The Chicks would go to the big room, and the Boyz would survey the grim cystal crawl and meet us there.

Viv and I headed back again, this time with Lynne in tow. Still no flagging tape or footsteps. Cool! We did the Ee-ee Ee-ee Ee-ee dance at the edge of the pit. I had been thinking about naming our little discovery the Lost World, but decided upon the Grrlz Room in the interest of sisterhood. Then we got to work, scooping a bit and then surveying. The parallel fissure was slow going, because it was tight and dropped off quite a bit.

It was Lynne who sounded the death knell of our euphoria. "I see blue tape." Damn. Upon emerging from the other end of the fissure, sure enough. EY- 52C.

"Hey Viv. Isn't EY the _Borehole_ survey."

Sure enough, if you peered down the slope into the darkness, you could catch a little glimpse...of double orange flagging. There we were, virgin passage, not 50 feet from the borehole. We consoled ourselves while sulking back to the beginning of our survey, that we had left a lot of leads (some of them very good) for someone else. By this time it was 12:30. We did NOT scoop for quality.

We could here the Boyz coming through the passage towards us.

"Art, hold on a second. I need to get on my head to read this one." Sure enough, there was Glen, balancing on his head to read the instruments in a tight angled passage. Art commented that he and Glenn had both noticed that I seemingly had chosen the smallest hole at every junction, dubbing it California Borehole, and granting me "serious pyscho points."

We gave Glen and Art the bad news ("we tied in"), and they barely paused in the room before heading back for packs, vertical gear, and the final commute down the borehole to camp.

So what is it about the 11th hour (or more properly in this case, the 11th hour and 55th minute) that induced the cave to behave properly?

Over dinner that night (a feast of food that no one wanted to carry out) the five of us agreed, it was the best survey we'd had all week.

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