(Getchen's Great Adventure)
By Peter Ruplinger
Summary
Mines can be an extremely
dangerous endeavor. They can be unstable and contain deadly gases. Any rescue
would be long, technical, and possibly endanger more lives. This is a story of
how grotto members took all of the precautions to safety descend
the depths of 750 foot mine in search of natural cave passages.
Be warned - exploring mines can
be dangerous - please do not try on your own.
On Trip
Peter Ruplinger
(trip leader), Spencer Christian, Shay Lelegren,
Brandon Kowallis, Andy Howe, Peter Hartley, Dave Shurtz,
Jared Shurtz, Ryan Shurtz,
Jon Jasper, Connor Morgan, Mitchell Harris, Robin Larsen, Bandon Larsen, Shawn Larsen, and Amanda Larsen
My son Jared and I first visited
Selma Mine in 1980. We dropped huge boulders down the shaft and listened
carefully. The last rumble seemed to be an amazing twenty-two seconds later. What
a hole!
A few years passed and
attempting to determine the depth, we dropped a fishing line with a weight. The
line was so long that when retrieved, we had no way to easily measure it. We
just strung it out along the road and used the car odometer to guestimate the length at 825 feet.
Subsequently I purchased a 600
foot rope for the specific purpose of dropping the pit. Bob and Bobs gave me a
super deal. Just 40 cents a foot including a rope bag.
I was optimistic that the Selma Mine would intersect a cavern.
There were, however some
specific problems in dropping the shaft. The main concern was dangerously loose
conglomerate near the surface. There was one monstrous protruding boulder,
which looked like it should have fallen into the pit decades ago. Smaller rocks
were everywhere. I observed small rocks fall on their own accord at the rate of
one or two every hour or so. The possibility of bad air was also a concern.
Robin Larsen, my neighbor, came
to the rescue. Robin specializes in high voltage power transmission and has a
truck with a boom crane. He has an adventurous spirit and was enthusiastic
about helping. He offered to use his crane to reach out over the direct center
of the shaft, and suspended a rope. This would greatly reduce the danger of
knocking rocks loose.
It was important to know the
exact depth of the pit. To this end I assembled a fishing pole like apparatus
with a large reel and rod. One turn of the reel was exactly 2.12 feet. I put a
lead weight on the line and determined the depth to be 749.5 feet, plus or
minus a foot. Two kids in the neighborhood, Mitchell and Connor helped. I was
glad to have them along as the road was too snowy to pass and we had to carry
the gear a considerable distance.
Connor and Mitchell lowering drop line. Photo
by Peter Ruplinger
Next
I wanted to determine if the air was safe. Lacking expensive test apparatus,
the best way to do this was with a parakeet. Furthermore, you can't argue with
a dead parakeet. There is simply no question about it. It is not like having to
worry if the batteries are charged or if a sensor is working. A pit 750 feet
deep is likely to have water in it. That would obviously kill a bird, bad air
or not, so I dropped another test line. This line had a small rag attached
every ten feet of the bottom forty feet. This would determine just how much
water was there. The line came up completely dry.
In
the meantime, my wife, Mary was checking on the mine's history. The earliest
record we could find was in 1903. The latest was in 1917 when an electric winch
and an electric drill were proudly acquired. In 1914 the mine was reported to
be 210 feet deep with 2,000 feet of horizontal passage. The Bureau of Land
Management, Utah Department of Abandoned Mines and Utah Historical Society were
all exceptionally helpful in our search.
Robin
and his children Shawn, Brandon, and Amanda cheerfully offered to help with the
parakeet test. We went to the pet store and purchased the cutest little
feathered friend we could find. We named the bright yellow and green bird
Gretchen. Gretchen turned out to be rather fowl mouthed (pun intended). She
shouted gross obsinities in parakeet dialect as the store owner snatched her
from her friends and pushed her into a shoe box. Perhaps we should have reserved this
prestigious honor for a tarantula or scorpion instead. We prepared the box with
numerous ventilation holes and off we went directly to the mine.
After
erecting the fishing pole like apparatus we carefully lowered the box to the
bottom of the shaft. Several hundred birds, somewhat in
appearance to starlings, but smaller, swarmed out up from the depths as
Gretchen was lowered.No doubt
they were startled to see a shoebox which smelled and sounded like a strange bird
being lowered into their habitat. It occurred to me that they were xenophobic
and did not appreciate a minority invading their neighborhood.
By
the time Gretchen was safely resting on the bottom, my arm was somewhat
fatigued, so I had Robin raise our feathered adventurer. Suddenly a tragically
unforeseen accident befell us. To our gloom and chagrin the line broke at just
fifteen feet below the surface! "Oh no! What have I
done?" Roger moaned as he buried his face in his arms. Gretchen raced to the
floor of the abyss like an elevator with a severed cable. Some might say, "Like a whiskey salesman on
his way to Hades." Robin and his kids were devastated. No doubt Gretchen felt
worse. We suspect her box got caught on the large precariously positioned
boulder and broke the string. We all speculated if Gretchen could possibly
survive. Surely there was no hope. This was truly a mournful day in the annuals
of
"Oh no! What have I done?" Sketch by Peter
Ruplinger
Two days
later Shawn and I went to get another bird. We named her
Shawn
is a junior in high school and pretty sharp. He got the idea of draping a rope
across the pit with a loop in it and threading the drop line through the loop. This
would eliminate the possibility of snagging
We
took her back to the pet store. On the long drive back Shawn and I discussed
what we would tell the store owner when we returned the bird. Shawn suggested
we simply say that
Robin,
Hartley and I picked up the truck and headed south. We met the rest of the
cavers at the Elberta junction. The air boiled with
enthusiasm.
Forty
minutes later we were at the pit. Robin backed his rig directly up to the
shaft, and extended the boom. Shay attached a large rescue pulley to the end of
the shaft. Hartley tied a figure eight to the bumper and a second figure eight
to the hitch. Spencer tied his 250 foot rope to the end of my 600 footer.
Jon
attached a walky-talky to his arm and a mike by his mouth. Next he wove the
rope through his rack. Robin sat on top of the truck and skillfully operated
hydraulic controls which raised Jon up two feet and then swung him directly
over the pit.
Jon being lowered into
shaft. Photo by Brandon Kowallis.
Soon
Jon was below the precariously positioned boulder and out of sight.
Andy
stood near the pit with the walky-talky in hand and kept in continual contact. Andy
was secured with a seat harness and dynamic rope to prevent a repeat of the
Gretchen atrocity.
I sat
in the truck bed with a stopwatch and note pad keeping exact notes of communications
and rope movements. By listening to creaks and groans of the boom, it was
fairly easy to determine when Jon was descending or resting. He had a lighter
to check for bad air every ten meters or so. Birds periodically swooped into
and out of the pit. We suspected they were going into the pit to roost or
possibly warm up.
The
rope was marked every ten meters so Jon could know where he was. He had a
compass on a lanyard as well. At a little over 100 feet he reported the shaft
changing from conglomerate to solid. At 210 feet Jon came to a passage on the
east and another on the west. That was exactly what we expected from the
historical reports. A minute or so later the transmission became scratchy then
failed altogether. The boom continued to creak in a rhythmic beat as Jon sank
deeper into the abyss. When the creaking stopped for a few minutes we knew Jon
was at the knot. When the creaking stopped again for a longer time we believed
him to be at the bottom. As rhythmic bobbing of the boom began we knew he was
ascending. Then all became still for a considerably nervous interval. We
speculated as to the stillness and were relieved when the boom returned to its
rhythmic bobbing.
About
an hour later we could hear Jon shout up to us and soon he was within sight. His
ascent took over an hour, but that is super time for a frog ascender system.
When
Jon reached the pulley Robin swung the boom away from the pit and lowered Jon
to the ground. We were all anxious to hear what he had experienced.
Jon
reported that the shaft was about eight by ten feet all the way down. After the
two passages at 210 feet there were no tunnels until he was twenty feet from
the bottom. At that point there were two passages opposite each other. At the
bottom Jon rested briefly, took a mineral specimen off the wall and began his
ascent. On the way up he tried unsuccessfully to swing into the lower passage. Jon
also observed that the birds flew as low as two hundred feet into the pit. They
didn't have any observable nests. They just seemed to sit on ledges for a few
minutes and then fly back out.
Andy
was down next. He went directly to the lower passages and swung into them. It
was easier for Andy to swing in because he was descending rather than
ascending. Andy had Robin's FM two-way radio. It worked all the way to the
bottom. I continued to monitor his transmissions and rope movements. Upon his
return, Andy reported that one of the lower passages went in about a hundred
feet and the other only twenty feet. To our disappointment, neither were reported to intersect a cave. The passages contained
nothing more than rail ties.
Andy descending into
pit. Photo by Jon Jasper.
I
asked Andy if he saw Gretchen's box. "Yes, I have it right here.", he responded, as he reached into his pack. He pulled the
box out. The box had apparently broke open as it struck the wall on its fall. Gretchen
was gone! There was no sign of her. Someone suggested that perhaps rats chewed
open the box and carried Gretchen off. What a frightful thought! Others
observed that the box showed no sighs of chewing. It was a clean tear. Jon saw
no rat droppings at the bottom. Consequently, we believe Gretchen escaped and
flew off with the other birds. If ornithologists of future generations observe
green and yellow starlings we will all know why.
Andy Howe 10 meters below the lip. Photo by Jon Jasper.
Andy
brought back a mineral specimen as well. I tested both specimens with 10%
hydrochloric acid. They tested positive for limestone. Tailings on the surface
however, appeared to be dolomite. Historical reports indicated the surface to
be dolomite with low grade iron ore and traces of lead, silver and gold.
Next
Dave and his two sons slid down to the 210 foot level. The FM radio worked
fairly well in the tunnel. They didn't linger, but returned to report in a
timely manner. They walked through about 1,200 feet of passage on the east. The
passage to the west was blocked at about twenty feet with a roof collapse. In the east passages they found an area with
several cases of dynamite. The
explosives were so old that they crumbled when touched. They were long past the
dangerous crystallization stage. Dave is a veteran firefighter and experienced
in such technicalities. On the wall were the names of approximately twenty men,
presumably workers. By each name was a date. The names were written with soot
from carbide lamps. The latest date was 1928. Like the lower tunnels, the upper
passages were petty much cleared out other than ties. There were no caves.
Dave
and his two boys each made it up from the 210 foot level in six minutes or
less, with the aid of rope walkers. That is great time.
Naturally
we were disappointed not to have encountered a cave, but the project can be
considered a notable success. We explored the entire mine in just one day and
experienced no difficulties. I suggested to the Bureau of Land Management and
Utah Department of Abandoned Mines that the Selma Mine be capped or filled in.
For
Gretchen it was a great adventure.W
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