| Candlelight Trip |
| Saturday, January 25th 2003 - Ralph Powers |
| Location: Candlelight Cave Trip Leader: Ralph Powers On Trip: Thomas Haskett, Vern Bowden, Ryan McBride, Stan McQueen, Jared White, Ralph Powers It took a bit of planning and configuring of the calendar but the BRGâs trip was on. I held out spots reserved for BRG members on priority. Had it full but then two dropped out and thus had openings. As I needed to return a big favor to Stan I told him that I was able to allow him and his son-in-law Jared along on the trip. I had taught Jared vertical and he had been caving elsewhere before and Stan was already experienced from caving back east years before. I had gotten Stan to meet with Richard D. The Friday before the trip to get the key and to meet us at the Lehi Mc Donalds. Tom and Vern came down from Idaho to spend the night and Ryan met us at the âcaver apartmentâ the next morning. We crowded into Ryanâs truck and headed on down. Stan had bought himself a new truck after a semi-botched trip to Nutty Putty where one of the rocks punched a hole in an oil filter for his van. He used to cave extensively back east around TAG and then moved out here to Utah where until I had heard from him early last year gotten bitten by the caving bug again. Stan and I met, did some rope work together, then he introduced me to Jared and I took them to Nutty Putty and Spanish Moss. It was this new truck that I was looking for. Problem was I wasnât sure exactly of the color...but I knew Iâd spot it once I saw it. Half hour later after waiting at the restaurant a bright red new truck pulled up and we were on our way. I rode with Stan so that the trip to the cave wouldnât crowd everyone like the trip to (and from) Lehi. We got to the gate and had it opened and ready to go in no time. This was to be Thomas and Ryanâs second trip, my umpteenth and everyone elseâs first time. For Thomas and Ryan to qualify as trip leaders theyâll need a third trip. I had taken it upon an idea I had that itâd be good that a pre-qualification training to lead trips would be that cavers would know how to be the first one in. I explained what I had in mind and the two were agreeable to it. Both did it without too much difficulty, and the rope was tied to the bolt for the others. Vern was the last one down and he had rigged his rope to one of the trees so that we would have two ropes for a faster ascent up out of the cave. Everyone was in safely and we began our trip. Stan wanted to do some photography as he seen photos from my collection of this cave. Thomas wanted to visit the lower areas of Post-Nasal as it was a spot he hadnât been before. He and Ryan lugged an additional 100' length of rope just for the drop below the webbing. Stan is a professional photographer and while he lacks experience doing cave photography he doesnât lack in equipment. With the hopes of getting some great photos we all agreed to play sherpa by dividing up his gear. Stan had a heck of a good deal on E-bay with those old type magnesium flashbulbs. He said that the light produced by these flashes is more true to daylight. Also an interesting lesson Stan told us was that Cave photography is difficult to light because the atoms in the cave arenât used to light and thus absorb light rather than reflect it thus producing proper illumination. So a photographer would need more light than normal to compensate for the loss of light. We made our first âphoto-opâ at the arch way leading to the junction rooms. There a couple of shots were taken with three of us holding a flash-firing hand held slave for the bulbs and firing when Stan gave the word. Using his digital camera he was able to see the results immediately. A second shot produced better results. 2 Re-packing and moving on we gotten to Ooh-Aah and I enjoyed the typical reactions to the first-timers view of this neat room. We had lunch there, carefully making sure none of our crumbs would fall to the floor. Stan took some more shots here. And I borrowed one of the slave units to pop off close to the calcite covered walls and everyone enjoyed the effects. Once we were packed up again and ready to move on I went on ahead to the junction leading to Candy Cane passage and waited for the rest to catch up. Turned out that Stan slipped while trying to do the dog-leg portion of the turn and fell down the slope before catching himself. He blamed his being out of shape. He suffered no more than a bruise and a dented ego. The others helped him back up and he was good to keep moving. At the large room before the drop above Post-Nasal we shucked off everything except our personal vertical gear. Stan left his photo equipment behind and later wished he didnât. All of us made it down the purple webbing, which I feel should be replaced by a rope of either 9 or 11 mm so that those not brave enough to climb up (or rappel down) the webbing alone can at least have a rope to attach an ascender to for safety. On soapbox: Iâve never subscribed to the philosophy of âif you canât do it that way then you shouldnât be in thereâ. Some people, particularly beginners need time to build up skills and confidence in climbing drops such as the one by Post-nasal, without the need of ropes and/or mechanical assistance. Even the best (in-cave) climbers can slip or have a rock suddenly break loose from under their foot without warning. As Candlelight is used by all grottos and by all cavers of varying skill levels then drops such as these and another one comes to mind is in the Fair Game Room, need to be rigged with a permanent rope. Off soapbox. I did a simple rig on an out cropping of rock at the bottom of the âdown-climbâ and got the rope Thomas brought hooked to that. From there I wasnât too sure if the length of 100' would be adequate enough to do the ârealâ rope drop going down to the Post-Nasal canyon area. I explained that I would go down far enough to make sure that the rope reached the bottom. Doing so I found it did and hollered back up the results and finished the rappel. For the others it was well worth whatever pucker-factors they might have suffered going down that purple webbing as all made a comment about how neat it was going from a narrow constriction to suddenly a large room. Some wanted to continue on down the slope but I decided against it as we didnât have enough rope and the gypsum beards may still get hit by rocks loosened by the debris slope leading down to the bottom of the cave. After a breather it was time to head out and within an hour we were back in the mine drift and putting on our ascending gear for the exit. With two ropes the ascent out was speedy and the gate closed without any problems for once. Time spent going down to the Post-Nasal and the photography didnât allow us enough to do a âtourâ of the area as requested as Thomas, Vern and Ryan needed to be back up north at a certain time. This is why I try to suggest to any trip participants not to plan anything else but the caving trip so that afterwards thereâs time for spontaneous sight-seeing or dinner or whatever! It was a good trip, despite Stan taking a tumble and Iâm glad he didnât get seriously hurt. Most of the photos can be found at http://www.smcqueen.com/Gallery. The drive back home was long or it just felt that way. |