Cave Rescue Training - April 2015

 It had been a few years since we had a National Cave Rescue Commission training in our area. With a little nudging from my friend Andy, I picked a date, found some instructors willing to volunteer their time, and got ready for a fun weekend.

On Friday we had fifteen students come to improve their single rope technique (SRT) skills in the morning. We had seven single ropes up in the fire station, plus a rebelay course that included some J-hangs and a guided rappel. It was a challenging rebelay course, but fun! Here's Deanna doing the guided rappel, which would keep you out of a waterfall or get you over a pothole or some other obstacle.

In the afternoon we went out to some nearby cliffs and did raises and lowers. It was a windy afternoon, but everyone did well and learned something.


While we were prepping the site, I got this fun shot.


In the evening you could tell we were getting a little tired…but we were still laughing! (Can you see what's happened in the photo below?)

The next morning we changed gears and started the Orientation to Cave Rescue class, a two-day class. We spent the morning and early afternoon in the classroom. Here's Bonny doing the best psych considerations talk I've ever seen. It was also perfect for keeping the students awake after lunch as they had to get up.

Later in the afternoon it was time for the obstacle course, which teaches how to move a litter and tests leadership/followership skills. One particularly fun challenge was going through a narrow fork in the tree.

They did it well! Then everyone had to climb through the tree, which took some teamwork.

Sunday it was time for the mock rescue to test their skills. Thanks to Bonny and Tori for getting some of these photos, as I ended up being one of the patients. They had to come find me and carry me out of the cave.

When the students arrived, they got organized. The incident commander sent everyone to the cave.


Then they were divided into teams with different missions.

One of the search teams found me and then had to keep me warm and treat my injuries while they waited for a litter to arrive.


It took me about ten minutes to go to my place in the cave uninjured, but over three hours to get me out, largely due to patient packaging and then various vertical obstacles. It just goes to show that you want to cave carefully or you could end up spending a lot longer in a cave than you had planned!

On the hike back I discussed the mock rescue with Andy. We were both very happy with how everyone had done. Thanks so much to all the instructors, students, Great Basin National Park, Ely District BLM, and Snake Valley Volunteer Fire Department for their support!

The National Cave Rescue Commission has upcoming training--a Small Party Assisted Rescue seminar in June in Lund, Nevada (with only four spots left), and a weeklong seminar with various levels in Park City, Kentucky (next to Mammoth Cave) at the end of July. You can find more info at the NCRC website.

A Better-Than-Expected Adventure

With our very warm March, we spent more time outdoors than usual, and one Sunday we decided to take a hike to check out a cave I had the coordinates to. I didn't have much more information than the coordinates, so we didn't know what to expect. We packed up and enjoyed the hike, seeing a few splashes of color as wildflowers like Indian paintbrush (above) and milkvetch (below) bloomed.

This juniper on the top of a cliff looked like a bonsai tree.

It took us about 45 minutes to find the cave. I rigged a rope to check out the entrance and found this western fence lizard hanging out on a midden part way down.

I had managed to forget a descent device (never mind that I have seven), so I rappelled on a munter. (It's great to know different techniques--if you'd like to learn more, check out this upcoming cave rescue training.) Then I climbed out and lowered my husband and Desert Boy. Desert Girl didn't want to be lowered, and I wanted to move the rope to an easier spot to get out of the cave, so we went in from this side, where we could see the dark mouth of the cave beckoning.

We only found one historic signature in the cave, Cliff Bellander on June 25, 1955.

The entrance descended steeply over boulders and cobbles.

Before long we saw old, weathered formations. The floor was primarily a packrat midden.

The cave kept descending fast, and I was glad I had my 20 feet of webbing to help belay the kids down the steep sections.

Most of the cave was very dry, but we did find this wet formation with very pretty decorations.

The cave wasn't large, but it was certainly larger than we were expecting. And more beautiful too. It's such a treat when things turn out that way! Then it was time to head out. Desert Boy scrambled out with the help of the rope before I even finished taking photos. Desert Girl tried, but needs a little more strength.

She was happy to be hauled out.

I wanted to get a family photo, but those seem to be hard to get when we all look happy.

We knew the truck wasn't far, and the kids wanted to get to the snacks. So they took off. I was impressed with how Desert Girl ran through the bushes, jumping over small obstacles.

I was a lot slower, pausing to take photos, like this bitterbrush seed.

It was a fun adventure and a good day.

Antelope Springs Cave and More

 It's been a number of years since I've been to Antelope Springs Cave, and I hadn't seen the whole cave the first time. The circumstances turned out right to go again, largely to a caver friend coming for a visit. We gathered three adults and two kids and got the permit and key to the gated cave and headed out on a sunny day (back in October--I'm a little behind on posting!).

 There's a small shelter cave just below the real cave entrance that provides very nice views.

Then we reached the main entrance, with a bat-friendly gate. The entrance drop is about twenty feet. The boys decided they wanted to be lowered into the cave rather than rappelling in.

The adults all rappelled into the chamber, which opened up.

We soon faced choices. Down a little hole in the floor, or down a slope that turned into a climb? We had a map from the BLM, but it was at a small scale so hard to decipher. I knew one passage I particularly wanted to visit, so we headed that way. A lot of Antelope Springs Cave consists of a tube with domes and floors that suddenly drop off.

We found some wonderful colors in the rock and formation.

We also found a lot of tight spots. We had to try some. Here's Desert Boy going through one. A couple adults went through this little hole too. The cave is warm, but when you're belly crawling, it feels even warmer.

There's not a lot of graffiti in the cave, but some. We explained cave conservation to the boys and how it is really bad form (not to mention illegal) to spray paint or write on the walls. We also explained how the arrows usually show the way out of the cave. However, sometimes the people don't know the way out, like shown below.

We spent a fun few hours looking around. This is a challenging cave, with lots of climbing, steep dropp offs, and slippery slopes. At one point I even made a webbing harness and we belayed the boys with another piece of webbing. Eventually we decided it was time to go, particularly when we got to a very slippery spot with a long, steep slope. I wanted to have the boys tied in for that, but we didn't have enough extra webbing or rope with us. So we played it safe and headed back. There are a lot of potentially dangerous places in this cave where it would be easy to break a leg, so we went slow. And as you can see from the photos, we all had helmets, multiple lights, gloves, knee pads, and some even had elbow pads.

To get the boys out we used a traveling haul system. This is a haul system that moves with the patient, and although it's not as quick as a haul from the top, it could be useful in some situations. Plus it's good to practice those rescue skills regularly! For the first boy, we had the boy push up the upper ascender (a Pantin). He could only move it up about a foot at a time, so we had a lot of resets. For Desert Boy, we put a webbing leash on the Pantin that could be pulled from the top, and that worked really well. The only extra gear used besides the regular Frog system were two pulleys and a piece of webbing.

Although Desert Boy enjoyed his free ride up, we'll be doing some vertical training soon to get him ready for the climbing contests at the 2016 NSS Convention in Ely, Nevada.

The light of day is always a welcome sight after a satisfying cave trip.

After we refueled, we went to the public land near U-Dig Fossils and spent some time looking for trilobites. We didn't find many, but we did see a few, including very small ones.

Breaking rocks was a lot of fun.

Another stop on the way back was Hermit's Cave in Marjum Canyon.

We found some supplies there for the Apocalypse. The mice had found them too, unfortunately.

We also noticed some climbing bolts in the area--something we may have to return and try out.

One of our group got a flat tire, so we had to go slow. That let us get some spectacular views of Notch Peak, the highest limestone cliff in North America.

During the whole day I think we saw only one or two other vehicles. These are remote places!

Small Party Cave Rescue Class 2014

As a precursor to the upcoming epic Zion adventure post, I thought I better do this post.

 At the end of September I spent a long weekend in Garden City, Utah to help teach a Small Party Assisted Rescue (SPAR) class, sponsored by the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC). My friend Andy had asked if I would be a part of it, and since I enjoyed the previous one we had taught together so much, I said yes. Andy had found a huge vacation cabin that slept 26, so we had 20 students, 5 instructors, and 1 very awesome Bonny who did everything under the sun (or clouds) to keep us going.

It turned out the cabin had some great rigging opportunities, which we took advantage of for the Thursday night check-ins and Friday exercises.

Friday we also had a half-day of classroom activities, including learning about pre-planning, what to take in your cave pack, using your vehicle as your mini rescue cache (even if it's a horizontal cave, you can keep some vertical gear in your car just in case), hypothermia, improvised splinting (see below), suspension trauma, and a review of haul systems.

Then the afternoon was time to get on rope. The students rotated through different stations, such as the diminishing loop counterbalance (a super small party rescue technique).

 We also taught how to get a person stuck on rope down to the ground quickly by converting to a lower. Of course, the best way to make this quick is to rig a contingency anchor (for example a munter tied off), so if someone gets stuck, it takes about five seconds to start lowering them.

Students (and instructors) loved doing the rebelay course, a rope course that included switching to different ropes, a deviation, and a J-hang. You really learn to tune your system so you don't expend too much energy.

In the evening we enjoyed a good rigging/bad rigging lecture. You need to know your gear. And test your anchors. Every time.

The next day we headed to a nearby cave under the threat of massive rains. The rains did come, but we went anyway. It's not always good weather for rescues, after all. The cave was ten minutes away by car and then a ten minute hike. The 30-foot pit provided us a variety of scenarios, expanding on what we had taught the day before, like how to use a diminishing loop counterbalance when you have to dangle it over the edge. We also did some in-cave movement and traveling hauls, where the haul system moves up the rope with the patient instead of being at the top (or bottom).

Here's the rigging for a contingency anchor, along with a canyoneer rappelling down on his piranha. We had a bunch of canyoneers in the class, and it was fun trading techniques.

By lunchtime everyone was soaked, so we headed back to the cabin to practice some other techniques, like how to get a patient through a rebelay (below).

 That evening we had a presentation from a local caver who had shattered his scapula (shoulder blade) in a caving accident this past summer and how he had self-rescued out of the cave. It was a great story and a good lesson for us all.

Then on Sunday it was time for the mock scenarios. We drove in the rain up to Paris Ice Cave, a place we had visited previously. This time I saw it with very different eyes as we set up three scenarios for the students. They did great.

It was a super weekend despite the unfavorable weather, and I had a super time. I learned a few new things, which I greatly value, and met and got to know some folks a lot better. In fact, I met up with one of the students a couple weeks later for our epic Zion adventure. 

If you go caving and have a chance to take a cave rescue class, by all means take it! I have become a much safer caver knowing what would happen if I get hurt deep in a cave--or even not so far into a cave. You can find a list of upcoming classes on the NCRC website.

Cave safely and softly!