This was sort of a pre-Porcupine trip. This worked out well because I had other plans for the Saturday for which Porcupine had been scheduled. The 350' rope that I ordered from Bob & Bob arrived on Wednesday and then I was able to finalize plans for this trip.
David left a message at my house on Thursday night and after some ad-hoc planning on Friday morning we met in Oakley.
Shay and I have both been to Jim Peck before but I did not want to attempt to find it without coordinates. We found that the coordinates we had were suffering from datum problems. Nevertheless, it probably did save a lot of time overall.
I decided to do the cave in my new Petzl PVC coveralls even though they are not really necessary. This was also the first time that I have worn my harness and associated gear on the outside of my coveralls. Everything in this respect worked fine. The shaft was in friendlier shape than the last time I had seen it. That is except for the last 50-80 feet. The normal hole that leads to the main room was plugged which caused us to have to go right and down a small rock drop. This area was loose and rocks were kicked down everywhere. I ended up getting hit in the forearm and the side of the head with sizeable rocks. David was also hit in the forearm in a separate incident.
We looked around and went under the glacier. David tried to do some photography but conditions were difficult and we weren't really setup for a full-blown photography trip. We decided that we would avoid the freezing cold mud section of the cave altogether. It also wasn't clear if it would have even been possible to get to it. After a short while, we decided that we had better get someone on rope before anyone got too cold.
Shay went out first and then David. When David got on rope, I decided that I better start running in place to generate some circulation. By the time David got out, I was nice and warm again. Sometime during this time it occurred to me that it was odd that I was only seeing about twenty extra feet of rope on the floor. This is supposed to be a 280' drop or at least that's what I had been told. If my rope is really 350', I should have a lot more left over. That made me think I better measure it when I got home. Anyone, I got on rope and after a few cycles of climbing the rope shifted sending a ten-inch ball of ice toward my face. Due to a quick and appropriate action (I panicked and flailed around), it missed me. It took twenty minutes total to get out.
Caving can be odd when you're just not in the zone. I was somewhat apprehensive about this trip to begin with. My enthusiasm was minimal when we got to the cave. Even less once we were down in it. And I was happy to leave when we got out. I hope Shay and David had a better trip than I did from an attitude perspective.
Anyway, when I got home the first thing I did was measure the rope out on the sidewalk; it measured out to 345'. That still means that if I used twenty feet of rope topside tying the knot and getting it to the pit, and if there were twenty feet lying at the bottom, that we still had to climb a full 305' of rope. I guess I'm glad I got a 350' instead of a 300'.
| Photography | ||||
 Preparing to Rig Shay Lelegren |  David Morrey Ascending Shay Lelegren |  Duane McCully Ascending Shay Lelegren | ||