I am a genius. Considering all the things that go on in my head, I can't bother to keep track of everything I need to document a trip deep into a mountain. The pictures were taken with Derrick's camera, so I won't take credit for any or all of them.
The dinner plate:
Derrick and I started hiking at 1/4 to nine. Darby Canyon is beautiful, and there was only one other car in the parking lot. There were a lot of cows, which fascinate Derrick. Why? No one knows. Derrick is just like that. He kept up well on the hike, in fact, he pushed me a little bit. We had a goal to be at the mouth of the cave by ten-thirty. We nailed it.
Derrick at the mouth of the cave.
The mouth:
The mouth of the ice cave isn't very big, and after a climb over a little VW bug sized boulder, there is normally an ice floor with sparkly frozen walls. Oddly enough the walls weren't frozen where the ice normally begins, unfortunately, neither was the floor. Stemming is just another word for straddling, so that's what we did, for about twenty yards. Then disaster stuck. Well, the walls regained their frozen nature while the floor still had six inches of liquid water over the ice. Derrick was struck with the fear that grips those who are about to be turned away from adventure. It's actually a sort of relief for some, but I wasn't about to let a few inches of water turn me around.
Stemming over the waterWhile still stemming over the water, I removed my shoes and socks one at a time and stepped down into the cold, cold water. I took my backpack to where the ice was solid about 10 yards down. Then I went back for Derrick . . . and you thought piggy-back rides were just for kids. My bare feet broke two inches further through the ice below the water. It was painful, but after drying off my feet and putting my shoes back on, I felt good enough to be swallowed. The cave had a taste and was very hungry.
Brrr. . . cold feet.The Throat:
After a few yards, the ice begins to slope. You can carefully step down the slope and risk a broken tail bone when you slip-you will slip-or you can get on your knees and enjoy the ride. It's just important not to go too far. The ice pitches down into a 45 degree angle, which must be rappelled, and then it gets real steep right before the esophagus.
Derrick on the ice rap.Mouth to First Stomach:
Down an overhung 70 foot rappel off the frozen waterfall to the big squeeze, the squeeze gets tight. Imagine trying to swallow grapes whole. Imagine trying to swallow little plastic army men. That's how the cave feels. The way I feel? Well, for 20 yards I've got a backpack in front of me blocking any view of what's ahead. I've got a backpack behind me that would block the view of my retreat, if it were only possible to crank my head around to look to my rear. I'm sandwiched in a tight tube of jagged limestone between two backpacks with just enough room to dig my toes and fingertips in and hump my way forward. I feel claustrophobic.
It's a tight squeeze
Real tightThe big squeeze gives way to a low ceilinged room that widens enough to even stand up, if you're a dwarf. Seriously, it opens up a little, but only momentarily because then you have to pass through the corkscrew, a.k.a. sphincter #2.
Sphincter #2 through the End of the Stomachs:
The corkscrew is the vertical version of the big squeeze. It's not nearly as long, but it sure feels every bit as tight. The correct method is to have person number one squeeze through and then hand him all the backpacks and gear. Without trying to push a pack in front of you, it's actually doable, though still no easy feat. Derrick was slow through this, but did it all the same. What choice did he have.
My rear end going up the squeeze.
Derrick is stuckOut of the corkscrew squeeze is another stomach, a confusing stomach. You basically turn and head back in the direction you just came from. It's just on a different level. Scramble down this stomach and you'll reach a rappel. It drops you into another room and you just stay on the rope and rap down another 15 feet. Down this rappel, continue on around the corner for a while and you'll come to a deep crevasse. A rappel has been set up if you explore around in this room, but the water fall adjacent to the rope will get you pretty wet. Derrick and I downclimbed as I have in the past. There are some cool icicles in this part of the cave. This stomach is generally the last place you'll see ice in the cave.
From the way you entered this room, exit to the left, and continue down the tunnel to one more rappel. This is the end of the stomachs. From here on out, it's stemming madness, the small intestine.
This is how you stem it.Stem and stem and stem. Put your feet on the walls, your hands on the walls and keep moving. It's not as bad as it sounds, owing to the fact that there are rock features everywhere and generally something to put your feet on. That being said, it is as bad as it sounds. You have plenty of features to hang on to. They're all muddy. They're sharp and slick. There are also plenty of features at head level, and since you're looking at your feet, your head takes a beating.
Let me go ahead and insert a picture of my helmet here. Like any intelligent caver, I have and wear a helmet. Kneepads are necessary for this cave too.
The ninja is a move that Summers named. The stemming pinches down to a weird diagonal pinch that requires some crazy gymnastics to get through. I think everyone does it a little differently, most ending up doing some kind of roll or crashing into the mud.
So stem around until you get to a right hand bend with a muddy little platform. This is where I like to join the cave in the GI exercise. Derrick and I ate ramen noodles and tuna fish. I've never had worse ramen noodles, and the tuna was more disgusting than ever. The noodles were old, and the tuna, which came from pouches, was soggy. Next time, I'll pack my own tuna and bring some crackers. Sorry, D.R.
This was no tasty treat.Okay, so cold and stiff, but full of crappy food, we go back to stemming. It finally gives way to the cascades, which involve stemming, but it's down a really cool slope where the limestone layers have been angled up. This is an amazing spot to think about how creative God is. Never in all of the eternities could I come up with such amazing features and creations, and then He buries them deep in the earth. It's mind boggling.
Large Intestine:
Eventually, the tunnel forces you onto your knees and away from the water. You've reached the mud crawl. It's easy enough to get lost here, but if you stay a little to the left, and watch for footprints in the mud, you'll stay on track. The mud lasts for a while and eventually the tunnel rejoins the stream. You're getting closer and closer to the dreaded Crotch Lake.
You'll know it when you get there. There's a muddy platform on the left, and the stemming gets so wide that it's impossible to continue. Cave nudity is the only way. Just drop your drawers and reach for the sky. It's about a 120 foot wade through water so cold it hurts. I've seen waders and inflatable rafts down there, but limestone is unforgiving to vinyl and they always just get trashed and get left behind as trash. It's amazing what people will do to keep their nads out of ice-cold water.
Almost through the lake. Where are my pants?I'm tall enough to stand on my tiptoes and as long as there are no major slips, I have about an inch to my saving grace. Derrick was able to do the same. I feel for you shorter (or longer) people. I really do. My feet and legs are rather numb after this little stint, but they warm up quickly. Hopefully the same holds true for everyone and their equipment.
It gets warm soon enough. Just round the corner, drop the last little rappel in a humid room that is constantly misted by a waterfall. Bring on the maze room.
This can get confusing. The general rule to get you out of the maze room, is to bring someone who has been there before. In 1997, Dad, Summers, Jeff Andrus and I spent a few hours exploring offshoots, kicking over false markers and generally getting frustrated. Even if you choose the right tunnel to get out, the exit out of that tunnel, to the pit is easy to miss.
As you enter the maze, look for a rock with an orange arrow painted on it. This is one of many markers in the room, but this is the correct one. You should make a hard right into a tunnel large enough to walk in. As this tunnel continues, watch for a spot where the tunnel descends. Look up, because you're about to make a big mistake. Above this descending tunnel there is another passage which often gets missed because you've got your light shining at your feet.
Take this upper passage, but make sure you're paying attention. The tunnel will narrow up and you'll have to do a little downclimbing. After this, keep an eye looking left. If you're not watching, you'll walk right past the pit and down a passage that dead-ends.
Colon and well . . .:
The pit requires a 5.8ish move to escape. there is a bolt where you can clip some kind of aid, but the rule again is to have someone who can climb out, even after an exhausting day. It's not easy, and it shouldn't be underestimated. Once out of the pit, adjust your knee pads because you're going to be doing some crawling. It gets nearly as tight as the big squeeze, but tasting victory makes it a little easier. The wind should be blowing pretty hard as you block off the tightest parts.
The smell of plants returns just before the light of the late afternoon spills in through the small tunnel that marks the extent of the soft-core excursion to the Darby Canyon Wind Cave. We arrived. We did it. The exit is bigger than that of a Houston-Texan. That's it.
Derrick was ready to go.Derrick and I spent almost exactly 7 hours in the cave. We cleaned up and made it back to Driggs by about 7:30. O'Rourk's is forever the place to celebrate after passing through the digestive track of Fossil Mountain. Yum!
It felt awful good to see the sun again.
The worst - Starkist:
Pretty good - Chicken of the Sea:
Completely bearable - Bumblebee Tuna:
1. Friction Fire - While still difficult, certainly not impossible. I was able to create a coal and drop it into my tinder bundle shortly after I was shown correct methods and materials. Just after that I used a hand drill and got a burning coal on my first try. Wikihow has nothing on the people at Anasazi. I do have some small burns on my hands, because apparently, I was not instructed properly on how to hold my tinder bundle as I blew the coal into flames. It's rather necessary out on the trail since we don't have flashlights, lighters, matches, insect repellent, or even really warm gear. Out there, fire is life.
2. Cow tanks and sleeping on the ground - (had to straight steal this image from Gilz) Yeah, that's not the cow tank that I drank from, but it's only slightly greener. We don't filter our water, we drop it. Two drops of clorox per canteen. Well, I'm still here. Cow tanks are pretty much tiny man made lakes out in the desert. They get pretty gross. I really don't mind sleeping on the ground. It's just cold without anything between the body and the ground. Good thing for pine needles and leaves. It's also quite nice to heat up a rock in the fire and put it in the sleeping bag. Any number of sexual innuendos could be applicable here, but I'm not even going to start.
3. I'm T-pain, you know me - Imma buy U a drank, so just get used to it. One of the young walkers in my band had completely convinced himself that he was the rapper T-pain. Thing is, the other four young walkers were pretty well convinced of it as well. Actually, he was just a confused blond kid from the East Coast who wanted to buy everyone a drank. That kid has a heart of gold and he's laugh-out-loud funny. All of the young walkers have incredible potential, and they show it out there in the wilderness. Here's where my change of heart happened. I truly thought that I was going into the wild to babysit a bunch of punk kids who were too spoiled all their lives to obey their parents. I was humbled like a boxer in a gun fight. My expectations were left in ruins as I became part of a dynamic and interesting family. In true cliche style, I learned a lot more from them than they ever could have learned from me. I had decided to give Anasazi a "trial week" after which, I would return to Utah to climb rocks. Integrity would not be on my list of qualities if I were to turn and run now, so here I am. I'll be here a while, so for those of you who I should be missing, I will. Eight days on the trail and six days off make for ample visiting time, though, so plan on seeing me at regular intervals.
4. Trail food - Our supplies are plenty, but not exactly gourmet. Notable though is that these kids have learned how to make everything from muffins to lasagna in their little tin cups. I mostly stuck to simple foods-cheesy rice and lentils, corn meal, oats, and the occasional ash cake. Ash cakes are rather simple. They consist of flour, water, and whatever happens to be left in your food pack. Powdered cheese and chewed up tomatoes make a pretty good ash cake, brown sugar and chewed up almonds make a better one. You then clear the fire away so you have a nice bed of hot white ashes and toss it in. I suppose the ash probably helps digestion if anything. Chewing up ingredients is just part of cooking in the wild. It's the only way to make tomato sauce. You could spend an hour trying to cut up all the ingredients you need for a tasty dish, or you could quickly chew them up, or love them up as we like to say, and then spit them into the mix. Everything is cooked on the fire or in a steel cup like the one above. Even muffins. It's rather amazing.
Joe's hairy toes gave their nails for him that day. Summers had minimal blistering compared to last year. My feet were a little tender on the bottom.
L to R this time: Hardass, Smirker, and lip biter. This view looks south toward the Middle Teton, and Mexico.
from right to left: A big smirk, Stone-cold determination, and some clown that escaped the circus.
One rather sketchy traverse.
You see the determination in his soul? And Table Rock in the background?
Once again, quite the mountain man. I think it's the beanie.
I think I look like quite the mountain man.
Summers and I nearing Wall Street. (how many wallstreets are there in the world?)
A little blurry, but I look skinny in that shirt.
