Post by Mike Green on Oct 3, 2006 8:58:40 GMT -5
Over Labor Day weekend, Emese and I traveled to Marble Mountain (Northern California) to meet up with Steve Knutson (Peruvian expedition leader) and a few other cavers. Our plan was to tour the Bigfoot Cave System while visiting the beautiful marble karsts features. The area was breathtaking! Opposed to the limestone hillsides that I am accustomed to seeing in TAG, large marble sinks littered the landscape.
We arrived in the Klamath National Park at approximately 12:15AM (a 6.5 hour drive from Sacramento) to begin our 6 mile hike in the dark. Before reaching the parking lot, a giant mountain lion ran in front of the car and up the hillside. Emese assured me that it was a privilege to see a mountain lion, especially one of that size, but I still began to wonder how safe we were hiking at night. After finding the parking lot, we began humping around 100lbs. of gear up the mountain at 1:00AM, and arrived at the campsite some few hours later.
The next day, we meet many cavers from all over the west coast in addition to reminiscing old stories about Peru with Steve. After introductions, a group of six went into the Discovery Entrance (a.k.a. the Historical Entrance) of the Bigfoot Cave System (pit series ~120’). The trip was intended for us to look around and to get a feel of the mountain’s cave environment. The cave was pretty amazing. Giant marble and calcite formations hung from all sides of the large stream passage; however, the biology of the cave is very limited by the temperature (~35 degrees). Within 8 hours, the group had left the cave and returned to base camp.
Sunday was by far the most interesting day of the entire trip. Steve, who did not enter the cave, lead Emese, Ethan, and myself up the rugged marble terrain to Bigfoot’s highest entrance, the Breathing Entrance (a.k.a the Meatgrinder). This is a staggering 900+’ above the Discovery entrance, making the cave the 9th deepest in the United States. Upon entering the cave, I noticed that all of the walls were made of a polished, white and blue marble that made me comment that, “this must be a cave for the rich.” The entrance drop of about 75’ was soon followed by five or six other drops with the deepest measuring just over 120’. After the pit series is where the real fun began. Downclimbs, rock squeezes, and belly crawls all in wet, 35-degree passages with a strong wind blasting and super-cooling the water where we reluctantly pressed forward. After a little under a mile of horizontal cave traversing (~800+’ below the entrance), we encountered our first and only problem concerning route-finding. I first ducked into an ear-dipper that flooded my quasi-dry suit with freezing cold water, only to be followed by a crawl/dig for about 50’. I reached an area where I could see standing room, but was separated by a gravel deposit. I began to dig and crawl forward, only to become stuck in a pool that was just short of my nose. Blowing bubbles in the water, I was forced to remove my helmet to retreat out of the water filled passage. Completely drenched, I began to search for another way forward while Ethan continued the dig. By this point, Emese (poor girl) had ripped open her PVC suit and was huddled in the corner for warmth. I searched the tracked-up canyon passage only to return three times to a collapsed ceiling that did not appear to continue. I returned to the dig to find Emese still shivering in the alpine breeze and Ethan asking me if he could return out of the failed, water dig. We all felt a sense of desperation as we realized that we would have to return the way we came (again, ~800’ deep, a mile of crawling, and many, many pits to climb). I knew that this would require the three of us another 6-7 hours on top of the 5 hours that we had spent up until this point. Frustrated, I told Ethan to forget the dig, and that it was time to begin our long painful journey out of the top entrance; but, I hesitated and decided that I would not let Bigfoot make a fool of me so easily. I attempted one final time to locate another way out, only to return to the top of the canyon once again. This time, I began tossing rocks every which way (mostly out of frustration), and then collapsed on the ground exhausted. Feeling depressed cold and ready to leave the cave, I happen to look up and something caught my eye. Where I had been throwing rocks wildly was a boot print! I resumed rock removal, this time more intently. On the other side was a site of sore eyes. A station point! A short crawl after this, I appeared at the top of a heavily traversed room of Bigfoot Cave! We had made it out of the Meatgrinder section of the cave system, and had now arrived in the more extensively explored Bigfoot Cave. After recollecting the team, we all got our second wind, and soon arrived at the junction only after a few hundred feet of walking passage. After the junction, the way on was fairly simple considering that we had explored this part of the cave on Saturday. We all climbed out of the pre-rigged entrance ropes and were out into daylight with a total traverse time of only 6.5 hours. A standard time for a crossover trip is approximately 6 hours, but this is with explicit knowledge of the route through the cave (according to Steve).
We arrived in the Klamath National Park at approximately 12:15AM (a 6.5 hour drive from Sacramento) to begin our 6 mile hike in the dark. Before reaching the parking lot, a giant mountain lion ran in front of the car and up the hillside. Emese assured me that it was a privilege to see a mountain lion, especially one of that size, but I still began to wonder how safe we were hiking at night. After finding the parking lot, we began humping around 100lbs. of gear up the mountain at 1:00AM, and arrived at the campsite some few hours later.
The next day, we meet many cavers from all over the west coast in addition to reminiscing old stories about Peru with Steve. After introductions, a group of six went into the Discovery Entrance (a.k.a. the Historical Entrance) of the Bigfoot Cave System (pit series ~120’). The trip was intended for us to look around and to get a feel of the mountain’s cave environment. The cave was pretty amazing. Giant marble and calcite formations hung from all sides of the large stream passage; however, the biology of the cave is very limited by the temperature (~35 degrees). Within 8 hours, the group had left the cave and returned to base camp.
Sunday was by far the most interesting day of the entire trip. Steve, who did not enter the cave, lead Emese, Ethan, and myself up the rugged marble terrain to Bigfoot’s highest entrance, the Breathing Entrance (a.k.a the Meatgrinder). This is a staggering 900+’ above the Discovery entrance, making the cave the 9th deepest in the United States. Upon entering the cave, I noticed that all of the walls were made of a polished, white and blue marble that made me comment that, “this must be a cave for the rich.” The entrance drop of about 75’ was soon followed by five or six other drops with the deepest measuring just over 120’. After the pit series is where the real fun began. Downclimbs, rock squeezes, and belly crawls all in wet, 35-degree passages with a strong wind blasting and super-cooling the water where we reluctantly pressed forward. After a little under a mile of horizontal cave traversing (~800+’ below the entrance), we encountered our first and only problem concerning route-finding. I first ducked into an ear-dipper that flooded my quasi-dry suit with freezing cold water, only to be followed by a crawl/dig for about 50’. I reached an area where I could see standing room, but was separated by a gravel deposit. I began to dig and crawl forward, only to become stuck in a pool that was just short of my nose. Blowing bubbles in the water, I was forced to remove my helmet to retreat out of the water filled passage. Completely drenched, I began to search for another way forward while Ethan continued the dig. By this point, Emese (poor girl) had ripped open her PVC suit and was huddled in the corner for warmth. I searched the tracked-up canyon passage only to return three times to a collapsed ceiling that did not appear to continue. I returned to the dig to find Emese still shivering in the alpine breeze and Ethan asking me if he could return out of the failed, water dig. We all felt a sense of desperation as we realized that we would have to return the way we came (again, ~800’ deep, a mile of crawling, and many, many pits to climb). I knew that this would require the three of us another 6-7 hours on top of the 5 hours that we had spent up until this point. Frustrated, I told Ethan to forget the dig, and that it was time to begin our long painful journey out of the top entrance; but, I hesitated and decided that I would not let Bigfoot make a fool of me so easily. I attempted one final time to locate another way out, only to return to the top of the canyon once again. This time, I began tossing rocks every which way (mostly out of frustration), and then collapsed on the ground exhausted. Feeling depressed cold and ready to leave the cave, I happen to look up and something caught my eye. Where I had been throwing rocks wildly was a boot print! I resumed rock removal, this time more intently. On the other side was a site of sore eyes. A station point! A short crawl after this, I appeared at the top of a heavily traversed room of Bigfoot Cave! We had made it out of the Meatgrinder section of the cave system, and had now arrived in the more extensively explored Bigfoot Cave. After recollecting the team, we all got our second wind, and soon arrived at the junction only after a few hundred feet of walking passage. After the junction, the way on was fairly simple considering that we had explored this part of the cave on Saturday. We all climbed out of the pre-rigged entrance ropes and were out into daylight with a total traverse time of only 6.5 hours. A standard time for a crossover trip is approximately 6 hours, but this is with explicit knowledge of the route through the cave (according to Steve).