He has no idea the ride he is in for.
Journal, August
NSS Convention!
The site of the convention is Porterville College, Porterville, Ca. Where's Porterville? Hell, I don't know. But it's hot. In fact, the town motto is: "If you go to Hell from Porterville, take a blanket."
It's not a bad little town. The athletic fields are turned into a tent city for cavers. Not every town would want this to happen to them.
Sunday we go to Sequoia National Park to see the really big trees. Yep, they're big. We also saw a bear up close. Pretty cool.
Monday we're back at Sequoia to go caving in Crystal Cave. Crystal Cave is a show cave, operated by the National Parks Service. But our trip leader is a trustee for the cave, and can take us off the paved and lighted path.
But it was important not to interrupt the paid tours. This involved a lot of sneaking around with lights off. The trip was supposed to last two hours, but no one told our guide, so it lasted six. We weren't about to complain. Thanks for the show, Sam!
Tuesday, while Lori is learning about Lava tubes, I'm in a lecture about cave accidents. Here's a statistic that may calm the hearts of non-cavers. Of all the cave accidents reported, only 15% are fatalities. Since we can rely on fatalities being reported, but many minor accidents go unreported, the percentage is actually much lower.
Now let's look at Cave Diving, which is using scuba in caves.
Cave diving is insane.
Wednesday is Cave Rescue Orienteering. We learn how to use a safety pin to keep someone's tongue out of their airway. Ouch. But the most important lesson we learn is that you do not ever want to get hurt in a cave.
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| Hector being a good
sport about being strapped into a stretcher. He has no idea the ride he is in for. |
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In the afternoon session, we practice. One of the cavers pretends to be the victim, and is strapped into a stretcher. The instructors have created a course for us to move him through. It involves some tight squeezes and an artificial waterfall. On part was so tight that a rescuer lost some skin off the back of her hand, because she put it between the wall and the patient's face to protect the patient.
It was fun, and I wouldn't mind helping with a rescue. But I hope to God I never have to be rescued.
Thursday is Vertical Workshop, where we try various means of getting up the rope using mechanical ascenders. The traditional, hand over hand method of ascending is popular among inexperience, rather dumb cavers. The technical term for this method of ascending is "Falling".
We get to practice various methods, including one using prusik knots for ascenders (it works surprisingly well), and we each find a system we like.
If you checked out Rockhopper's page, you may remember a comment to the effect that experienced vertical cavers will give you a lot of advice and some of it may be true. Well, most of the advice that we received was pretty reliable, but one instructor told Lori to use the automatic brake on her rappel device. She did and fell a few feet onto her butt. "Yeah, they'll do that when they're hot," the instructor told her. "But for short rappels, they work really well."
Jerk. He also gave me hell for using a climbing harness instead of a caving harness. Climbing harnesses are inefficient for cave ropework. But caving harnesses are unsafe for climbing. They are designed to keep the climber upright during fall, and absorb some of the momentum. After a thirty foot fall on a climbing harness, your heart is racing. Take a thirty foot whip on a caving harness, and your heart has traded places with your liver. "You never take long dynamic falls in caves," the instructor said. "True, but I use the harness climbing about ten times as often as I use it caving."
He didn't get it. Lesson: be careful who you get for an instructor, and be sure to get at least a second source before trying anything.
During convention we also got a chance to see a caving episode of Worst Case Scenarios. All of the cavers watching the show found it very funny. Idon't know if it was a particularly bad episode, or if the writers just couldn'tget a handle on caving, but if it was representative, assume that advice given to you by the show is wrong. Taking their advice could very well lead to a worst case scenario.
We leave California and drive to Sunset Crater National Monument, outside of Flagstaff, AZ. This a volcano site, and also near some Anasazi ruins.
Camping at 9000 ft. We gained a lot of alititude in a short time, and are not used to it. Every time we roll over in our sleep, we wake up gasping.
The following day we go to Mesa Verde National Monument to see what are probably the best preserved and most interesting Anasazi cliff dwellings. They are very impressive, but...
Is it just me or do they come off a bit primitive. They were created after the Great Wall of China, after the Amphitheatre in Rome, after the Haggai Sophia. Yeah, they're cool and interesting, but a technological marvel they are not. Even for stone age cultures.
We got a tip from a pre-operative transsexual that there was good climbing in Eleven Mile Canyon, outside of Colorado Springs. While he/she wasn't a stereotypical climber, the tip was good. There is some good climbing there, though most of it was difficult to top-rope and not bolted, so above our level.
There is also fishing in Eleven Mile Canyon. A lot of fishing. I do not get this. For me, fishing was always like standing around in the water with a stick in my hand. There must be some subtle joys that escape me. However, one of the joys is not enjoying peace and solititude of nature. The river is as crowded as a Seven-Eleven.
To make matters worse, the river is all catch and release. Now, I do believe there are valid reasons to cause pain to our fellow creatures, but entertainment is not one of them. If they were driving steel hooks through the mouths of chipmunks, reeling them and releasing them, they would be going to jail. As it should be. Catch and Release is just sick.
We arrive at my parents house in Denver, our first visit in many years. It is a good visit, including a trip to Taos, NM. Taos has been a center for Southwestern arts for many decades. Most of the town is done in a faux adobe style, which seems like it would be tackier than it is.
Remember in the FAQ how I said there was a difference between American and Canadian responses to our trip plans, and stating that I didn't want to make any Michael Moorish speculation on the cause? Well, it's a good thing I didn't, because I would then have to do a very un-Michael Moorish things and state that I didn't have my facts straight. It's true that while we were planning the trip, Americans seemed very concerned on our behalf, and Canadians seemed happy for us. Once we started, however, everyone told us that they envied us and that we were doing the right thing. Many retired people have told us that its good to do it while we are still young (though 40 doesn't feel all that young).
We head north again, camping in Northern Wyoming and Northwestern Montana.
We cross the border into British Columbia.
Which is on fire. The smoke is everywhere like a light fog, and sometimes you get ashfalls that resemble snow flurries. It is a little bit unnerving.
A couple of years ago, Lori and I went on a caving expedition in Cuba with eight other Canadian cavers, all from Alberta. We hadn't met them before, but we became friends, and we vowed to visit them when possible. The time had come.
Henry has a cabin in Kaslo, BC, and he invited us to join him and his girlfriend Bev (who was another of the friends we made in Cuba) and his ten year old son Martin. Me and Martin hit if off right away. Yeah.
Martin has some neurological problems which make his socially clumsy. A lot of people give him a hard time, but I'm not going to be one of them. He's a smart kid with a good heart and a social handicap. But still, he's a kid, and me and kids are not the best mix. You know how cats always go to the one person in the room who doesn't care for cats.
Henry takes us climbing in Slocan, a nearby logging town with a small sports crag. We made him lead because we were chicken and not as good. But the climbing was good, the setting very pretty, and the approach couldn't have been kinder.
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| The approach to climbing at Slocan. You belay from the road seen here. | The lake just behind the road. The haze is forest fire smoke. |
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| Lori climbing at Slocan | Jef at Slocan |
We go down to Cranbrook, near the US border, to see if we can volunteer to help with the victims of the forest fires. Apparently they didn't need us. That didn't sound right, given the severity of the fires, but what could we do?
Driving towards Jasper National Park, we can see one of the fires from the highway, creeping its way down the hill towards the road. A man sat in his lawnchair, watching it come closer to house. He was still quite safe, but I bet it didn't feel all that safe to him.
Jasper and Banff National Parks
These two parks are right next to each other, and are very similar. If driving down the highway looking at impressive scenery is your bag, you have to visit these parks. The mountains are much steeper and grander than the Colorado Rockies, though not as high in altitude. Wildlife is abundant, and some of it can be seen in predictable places.
One of the most impressive wildlife encounters we've had was a herd of about 20 elk move through our campsite. Like, right through our campsite.
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| Some of the 20 or so elk that grazed their way through our campsite. | The bull elk, blurry in this photo because I popped around the car and snapped the photo before he could get irritated with me. | Mountain goats, hard to see against a light background. |
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We climbed at Garden of Rocks and Leech Lake, and enjoyed both sites, though if you are going to lead at Garden of Rocks, know that the rock is very polished and the rating very steep.
Canmore, Alberta
Canmore is a little mountain town, just down the slope from Jasper. It has easy access to more climbing than you can imagine. It is also the home of Chas Yonge, another friend from the Cuba trip. Chas has been climbing for several decades, and knows his way around it pretty well. Pick up a guide to a crag in Canada and chances are you'll see C. Yonge as a first ascender on some of the routes. Chas is not only an excellent guide, but he is very generous with his time. However, he has his owns rating system for climbs, which we learned the hard way.
| Chas's Rating | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Piece of Duff | Moderately Hard |
| Good Value | Hard |
| Go-ey | Very Hard |
| Character Forming | Scary Hard |
| A Bit Desparate | "Whimper" |
Chas took us on our first multipitch climb, a three pitch 5.9 in Ghost River Canyon. A simplified explanation of multi-pitch for non-climbers: the leader goes up the wall about the length of the rope, then ties in and handles the rope for the climbers below him. When they get to the belay station (where he's tied in), he goes up the next pitch.
To get to the climbing in Ghost River, you drive down a very rough rough, across a couple of stream beds, then hike up a dry stream bed to a massive steep scree field. Scree is like large gravel. When you hike up a scree field, you slide back two steps for every three you take. It is exhausting and frustrating and sometimes even painful. It took us over an hour to make it up a few hundred feet.
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| Chas tied in at the
first belay station. | Lori and Jef climbing the second pitch. It looks like we are on the same rope, but we each have our own line, and Chas is belaying us both. |
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| The view from the top. Is this what makes it all worthwhile? Uh,not really. But it is nice. | Jef
rappelling back to earth. It's the only way off the top. |
Coming down off the scree field is much easier, using a method called rock surfing. You run straight down the slope, digging your heels in as far as you can, and riding the mini-avalanches you cause. It's a lot more fun than going up, even with the bruises, scrapes and one pair of torn pants. I lost the trail on the way back to the cars, and would have been in big trouble if I hadn't taken a compass reading at the top. All's well that ends well.
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