Post by Brian Gindling on Oct 1, 2006 21:45:48 GMT -5
Last i saw of mike he was sitting in an airport at around 4:30 in the morning looking like some discharged military man all surrounded by his two 50lb duffle bags and shorts over his polys. We had just gotten out of Neilsons cave at around 11:00 that night and decided to descend the mountain directly, cutting off 3/4 of a mile off a 2 mile hike, after somehow negotiating the cliffs once again, in order to get mike to the airport at 7:00AM. We were tired, broke, but we had just got done caving @3000 vertical feet in four days in four caves.
The morning we awoke at Tony Grove we found the trail to the karst benches above the lake and began to trail/bushwhack our way to Polygamy cave. The campgrounds are located at 8000' and the caves are found above 8600' to 9700'. The entrance to polygamy is a horizontal downclimb and a 20' vertical skylight with a comfortable room connecting the two, this was to become our first stashspot and change room. The cave is a 75' pit then the Persecution Crawl to a 190' which is the first of the three wives pits. These caves have some very tight and completely awkward pits to them. I dont really agree with what they are calling a whole pit here, some should be that arent, and some shouldnt be that are. We would find this to be a theme of these caves, along with many traverses and rebelays and some downright craziness going on with the styles and regularity of the rigging. The next day we went to Polygamys End which is a very vertical cave consisting of - 150',50',75',75',150',50', all in just 722' of cave. It is very much like a tight fissure running down until the last 150' which made all the other worth it. Not really any pretties in these caves, nor mud. The limestone is very sharp and alpine looking, and the dirt is damp sand mostly, you could tell this wasnt subtropical karst like TAG, Mexico, and China. The entrance was all alone on this small rounded hump in a perched meadow overlooking the valley, great looking karst and very picturesque.
END OF PART ONE
The morning we awoke at Tony Grove we found the trail to the karst benches above the lake and began to trail/bushwhack our way to Polygamy cave. The campgrounds are located at 8000' and the caves are found above 8600' to 9700'. The entrance to polygamy is a horizontal downclimb and a 20' vertical skylight with a comfortable room connecting the two, this was to become our first stashspot and change room. The cave is a 75' pit then the Persecution Crawl to a 190' which is the first of the three wives pits. These caves have some very tight and completely awkward pits to them. I dont really agree with what they are calling a whole pit here, some should be that arent, and some shouldnt be that are. We would find this to be a theme of these caves, along with many traverses and rebelays and some downright craziness going on with the styles and regularity of the rigging. The next day we went to Polygamys End which is a very vertical cave consisting of - 150',50',75',75',150',50', all in just 722' of cave. It is very much like a tight fissure running down until the last 150' which made all the other worth it. Not really any pretties in these caves, nor mud. The limestone is very sharp and alpine looking, and the dirt is damp sand mostly, you could tell this wasnt subtropical karst like TAG, Mexico, and China. The entrance was all alone on this small rounded hump in a perched meadow overlooking the valley, great looking karst and very picturesque.
END OF PART ONE
;D
