Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Copenhavers Conservation Trip


Copenhaver’s conservation trip

            First, travel back in time 2 days from Ken’s Worley’s survey trip report (he’s faster than I am at getting things written up) to when Dave D., Dawson D., Jacob Jackson, Ken Walsh, Dave T. and I all headed to Tanya’s house in Marion shortly after work on Friday.   We stayed up late talking caves and such so Ken and Dave D. let the rest of us sleep in while they drove down to the cave in the early morn to scope out the situation (we weren’t sure about the muddyness because of the evening storms the night before).  Though the gate was locked, they found that the cave was still there and the ground was dry enough to drive down the hill. 
            After they got back from the reconnaissance trip the 9 of us loaded up and went to find pre-cave breakfast.  This was perhaps the biggest struggle of the weekend.  We finally found a breakfast-serving restaurant on the 4th try.  After a hefty wait we were served a delicious breakfast and were ready to get underground.  Tanya headed to the BP to find the key to the gate while Carlin’s group headed a short piece down the road to Copenhaver’s.  The owner ended up letting us in while we were waiting on Tanya and Dave D. for the key...oh well.  Then we drove down the hill, parked near the cave and got geared up without muddying our feet (thanks to the protection of the leftover tarp from the grotto canopy). 
            We then headed to the cave to survey the workload.  There was lots of trash at the entrance--barrels, tons of barbed wire tumbleweeds, scrap metal, etc.  Ken and Jacob worked on that intimidating mass while Dave D. rigged the 2 part waterfall drop with the cable ladder. In the mean time Carlin, Kyler, Dave T., Dawson, and I hauled up the trash from between the entrance and the waterfall drop.  Our biggest find in this area was a 50 gallon drum full of mud that we managed to haul out on rope, what a treasure!  After the waterfall was rigged Dave T. and I headed down to scope out the trash below.  Dave wanted to free climb the second part of the drop so without realizing what he was doing he kicked a large rock down that was preventing the cable ladder from sliding into a crack. I was not fond of the free climb idea so I found a small boulder at the second drop and rolled it into the crack to block it so I could continue down on the cable ladder without difficulty.  Shortly after, Carlin and Kyler headed down the ladder to help with the trash.  

            In addition to the buckets we brought along for hauling trash, the cave graciously supplied us with several big blue farm buckets that had washed in.  One of them had landed next to a massive mound of mud covered barbed wire and fencing so after pulling it out of the salamander pool (with many larval stage salamanders of some kind!) I started to fill it with pieces of old rusty barbed metal (no tetanus shot required?).   We were soon joined by Kyler and Carlin who helped to fill more buckets with barbed wire and carry them back to the bottom of the drop.  Somewhere in here Dave T. and Dave D. took the first truckload of trash to the dump, yippee!  To facilitate the raising of the trash I was stationed at the second waterfall drop on belay while Ken was at the top lifting the loads and directing traffic.  The smaller buckets went up easily but big blue caused a bit of a struggle as it had nothing to tie on to so we spent many minutes cutting holes in the sides so we could get it on rope and it was too wide to fit where the skinny buckets had done fine.  After many tries and some coercing from the cable ladder Ken’s excellent maneuvering skills got ‘er up.  Jacob joined the crew at the bottom to help with the rest of the trash while Dave T. and Ken waited up top.  After the final loads were collected down below we raised them up one last time.  I guess people hauled them up to the entrance but I don’t know the details... We did some pull-ups to warm ourselves up for the rest of the cave.

Dave T. then joined Carlin, Kyler, Jacob, and me down below for a quick exploration trip of the rest of the cave.  We took a few pics while we waited for Dave T. to get down.  



            From the top of the waterfall Ken gave us careful instructions on where to go in the cave, naturally Carlin was the only one paying attention...So, the crowd headed down past the clean-up zone to the breakdown climb and over the rockwall to the rest of the cave.  According to Carlin and Ken, we should have turned off shortly after this at the zen garden to continue up to the top of the mud room.  Instead, most of us continued on straight ahead down the more obvious passage to the mudroom.  We played around here for a while sliding up and down the mudslides, Carlin took some photos, and Dave T. crawled down to the (suposedly salamander filled) sump.  We spent several minutes chasing a mouse-like creature around the big room, but just couldn’t catch it or its photo. 
            After a reasonably thorough tour of the cave we started heading out but stopped for more photos along the way.  Jacob did some meditation and pushups with the Christmas goose. 

 Some photos were produced.  We then ran into Ken, Dave, and Dawson on their way through the mud room (they followed Ken’s instruction so were coming up behind us instead of running head on into us).  In the mud room Ken fished out an old glass bottle of something (maybe drugs, maybe mud, maybe cave aliens, no one knows) 

 After playing around for a while our group headed out toward the cable ladder while Dave, Dawson, and Ken goofed around as to not congest things on the way out.  Our group scampered up the ladder uneventfully with Dave T. on belay up top.  Dave, Jacob, and I waited for Ken’s group so we could belay them up.  Ken was first up, and as he weighted the ladder the unfortunate rock that I had placed earlier went smashing down onto his head rolling off onto his shoulder and tumbling to the ground.  We worried from above while Ken caught his bearings and Dave D. checked to make sure there was no bleeding.  After a brief survey it was determined that he did not need to be flat-rocked, so
Ken headed up the ladder a second time...this try he was unharmed.   Dave D. and Dawson followed him up, also unharmed.  Dave D. and Dave T. derigged the ladder while the rest of us headed to the entrance.
            We packed up the gear and headed to pick up Tanya for a lovely Mexican dinner where Dawson learned some interesting tricks with straws, lemon seeds, and air pressure... Note: Somewhere in there another load of trash was taken to the dump (not sure where since I spent the entirety of the trip on the low side of the waterfall).  Then we all went to bed happily ever after and woke up for Worley’s the next day! Fun was had by all.

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