Bloomington Cave, Utah

Back in March, our friends Andy and Bonnie asked if I could help reconnoiter Bloomington Cave in southern Utah with them for an upcoming cave rescue class. My calendar was clear, as long as I could bring the kids. That was fine with them, so we agreed on a meeting time. But the night before, it snowed! Snow in St. George isn't very common, and it was so beautiful I just had to stop and take a few photos!

We were worried about the road, but fortunately everything was frozen and travel was easy. I stopped again to snap a photo of this cool cave sign.

Bloomington Cave is managed by the BLM. They have a nice website page for the cave. It tells you how to get a permit, how to get to the cave, and maps of the cave.

Near the parking area is a covered kiosk with some really good caving info. One side shows what you should have to go into the cave, like a helmet, lights, kneepads, and depending on where you want to go, rappelling and climbing gear.

Another side shows some of the creatures that call Bloomington Cave their home.

It might surprise some people how many different cave dwellers are in the cave.

 

On the fourth side is a good map of the cave. Both it and the Cave Routes map on the website show different color routes through the cave. This is extremely helpful for navigating the 1.4-mile long tectonic cave, which is a bit mazy.

Properly equipped, we headed down to the south entrance.

We opened the gate with the code we had gotten. The cave gate is quite ingenious, as it can be opened from the inside without any code, so people can get out anytime. But to get in, you need the code, and they change it frequently.

The kids wanted to lead the way, and since the trail was marked with flagging, we let them.

Before long we came to the cave register, and Desert Girl and Bonnie checked it out.

I had been to Bloomington Cave over 15 years ago, and the thing I remembered most was how vertical it was. The majority of the cave is at a 60 degree angle. We went down to the Big Room, using the ropes we had brought with to assist us. We did a combination of rappelling and using the ropes as handlines. (I would recommend coming prepared to rappel, it makes it safer.) We were assessing the cave for where we could do some cave rescue practice in about a month under a special permit. We made our way around a loop and back to the cave register. 

Then we tried another route. (Be sure to check out the Routes page on the BLM website, which has a nice description of the different flagged routes.) We decided to give the green route a try, which is the shortest entrance-to-entrance route. It includes a squeezy part and some crawling. We even found some soda straws and flowstone.

After a break for lunch, we went back in the North Entrance and followed the pink route. It was a lot of fun seeing some of the cave, and their marked routes is a great idea. This is not really a beginner cave, it has some pretty tough sections.

A few weeks later I drove out to Gunlock State Park to help instruct at the Small Party Assisted Rescue (SPAR) class for the National Cave Rescue Commission. I had never been there before, and was quickly impressed with the beauty!

The storm clouds did mean cold weather. Our classroom was in an unheated shed, and we did rope work outside. Plus we camped. That meant the cave was our warm place, and fortunately we spent two full days in it.

We rented this old hay barn to do vertical practice. Although I've taught this class a bunch of times (12 now, I think!), I always learn something new. This time it was Diminishing Loop with a knot pass (in case you didn't have a rope that was double the length of the drop). We discussed a good knot to use to tie two ropes together to make crossing the knot easy and then put it to the test. It worked very smoothly.

And then we had some pickoff demos and time to practice. These are so easy to mess up, so it's critical to practice frequently if you think you might ever need to use one.

I didn't manage to take any more photos at Bloomington Cave for the SPAR practices because I was pretty busy teaching, but the cave worked well. My favorite station was the pass a patient through two rebelays to get them down the 100-foot drop in the Big Room. Then we used a traveling haul to get the patient up through two rebelays. Since the drops weren't totally vertical, just steep angle, it made it a pretty good training area. And it was my first time having the opportunity to use two rebelays for teaching, it adds a little complexity.

One last photo: due to high water, the waterfalls at Gunlock State Park were running and were very pretty! If you're headed to Bloomington Cave, they're worth a detour.

Adventures at Whipple Cave

Over the weekend I went to Whipple Cave in the Egan Mountains of Nevada to teach a cave rescue class. Earlier in the summer I went to Indiana to teach cave rescue as part of a National Cave Rescue Commission class. This class was on a much smaller scale, with members of the Southern Nevada Grotto and local firefighters attending.

We reached the cave via a short trail and started practicing various techniques right at the entrance, where a 60-foot drop leads into the cave (you need at least 80 feet of rope, though, in order to reach the anchors). 

We were having record high temperatures this weekend, so about in the middle of the day we decided it was too hot to stay outside. So we rappelled into the cave with enough gear to do our practice sessions inside the cave.

Here's the entrance of Whipple Cave looking up from the bottom of the pit. There are actually two holes, separated by a natural arch. The rappel is mainly against the rock wall, except for the last fifteen feet, which is free. 

I didn't take all that many photos during the weekend because I was concentrating on what we were doing, but I did manage a few.

The outstanding feature in Whipple Cave is this enormous column near the back of the cave. To get there you have to cross a boulder field and go through the keyhole, which involves squeezing through a hole and then jumping across a deep crack onto a boulder.

We found several good pits right in that area to do some vertical practice.

Here's Ben ready to haul our patient out of the pit.

Bill and Tom are doing a safety check on the system.

Micah sees that Ben is pulling plenty hard so he can just tend rope.

And up comes our patient, enjoying the smooth ride. After we did a few practices, we took out the litter and backboard.

Our cooperative patient even stood up and moved right where we wanted him with the Oregon Spine Splint attached.

Then he got buckled into the Sked litter before taking a ride through the keyhole. Now we know we can do it--although it would be better to have a lot more people to help. One thing that became apparent during all the practice was that if someone got hurt at the back of the cave, it would take a lot of people--15 to 20 would be nice--to get a patient out in a reasonable amount of time (8-10 hours). 

I always recommend that people who go caving take at least a basic rescue class. It certainly makes you cave a little safer if you realize what it will take to get you out of a cave if you get hurt.

Back at the entrance we climbed out of the cave, packed up gear, and headed home or to a campsite for the night.

The next morning we got back together and reviewed what we had done the day before. I challenged the class to set up a haul/lower system, belay, and attendant line in 20 minutes at the cave entrance. They managed to do it in about 30 minutes. Then we went on to practice counterbalances and some basic rope climbing skills down in the cave. 

Another group was visiting the cave, so we had to use some different anchors than we had the day before. We found that one worked better for doing a haul, so it was good to be forced to think outside the box.

The other group had started climbing out before we did, but they were using some primitive climbing gear, so it didn't take long for our group to pass them. We had nearly all the gear put away and were getting ready to go back to the trucks when we heard a call for help from down in the pit.

One of the guys had climbed a few feet off the ground, but he couldn't go up or down and was exhausted. At first we thought it was a joke, but when we took a better look at him, we realized he was seriously stuck. He was drenched in sweat and so tired he couldn't help himself at all. He had a buddy down below him, and their wives and kids were up near the top. They wanted the wives and kids to start pulling on the rope to help him get up. 

We said we would be happy to assist, and quickly rigged up a haul system, and created a belay and edge attendant lines. Earlier in the day it had taken 30 minutes to do this. Now, after a little more practice and in a for real situation, it only took about 10 minutes. Ten minutes later we had the man out of the pit.

I'm glad it all turned out well. I don't think the man will be rappelling into another cave anytime soon--or anytime again for that matter. He was quite spooked by the incident, and he realized that if we weren't there he could have been in serious trouble. It's very dangerous to dangle in a harness because you start losing circulation to your legs, and that can lead to life-threatening injuries.

We all learned a lot during the weekend, too. This was a sharp class, and they learned fast. Now we need to keep practicing those skills so we stay fresh and ready for the next incident.

Flagstaff Small Party Cave Rescue Class

Back in April I took some time off work and headed to Flagstaff, Arizona to teach a Small Party Assisted Rescue (SPAR) class for the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC). This was the sixth one I was teaching, the third as lead instructor. I had to figure out some logistics (like where we would train), so I met up with Ben the day before the class to go look at sites. It was crazy, we drove  out onto the flat desert and then suddenly we came to this big gash in the earth. It was an earth fracture, making a cave.

We descended into the very linear feature. Along the way we found rolls and rolls of barbed wire.

We also found some great spots for crack and crevice problems.

After exhausting that cave, we went down the fissure a ways and found another entrance. This one required a rope. The first boulder we wanted to anchor to had a rattling sound coming from under it, so we went to another one. I was hoping we wouldn't have a close encounter with the rattlesnake.

It was a fun drop, nearly all of it free hang. And fortunately we didn't meet up with the rattler back on the surface.

Later that night we had check-ins. Students have to know a variety of knots and some basic single rope techniques (SRT) before they can take the class. All 16 students who had signed up for the class made it in.

The next morning the classroom was the living room of the house we had rented. We like to have an expedition-style feel to the class, so we stay together and make food together, as well as train together.

The actual classroom time is short. Soon we were outside doing haul system reviews.

Then it was time for afternoon rotations. Here's the diminishing loop counterweight station. The big ponderosa pines made for great anchors. The idea with this rescue technique is that using a pulley and twice the amount of rope as the drop, the rescuer can climb and without too much effort, get both herself and the patient to the top of the drop.

At the releasable redirect station, the students learned how to do a haul up and over something. In this case, they were moving someone over the dumpsters.

We were at the USFS Flagstaff facility, and they had some nice covered space to work on convert to lower. This is a skill where if someone is stuck on rope (usually over a cliff or down in a cave), you convert the rigging to a lowering system. Of course, if they had just rigged with contingency rigging (e.g., a Munter tied off), it would only take seconds.

Another station was Traveling Haul, where you learn that you don't have to have a haul system at the top of the drop. It can be moving with the patient.

Students worked in groups of four so everyone was hands on.

We had six instructors for the class, and as lead I rotated around to see how learning was progressing.

The little white boards were a big help.

Here's Andy lying down on the job, ha.

Following the first set of rotations, we had some free stations, where students could go where they wanted. Many chose to attend Mel's talk on carabiner evolution.

We had rebelay courses set up in a couple ponderosa pines, and some students gave those a try. You always know how well your vertical system fits when you do one of these!

All that got us ready for the next day's exercises, at a real cave. We again had students rotate through a variety of stations, basically expanding on concepts they had learned the previous day.

We were working with lava this day, so we had to be very aware of loose rocks. Lava tends to break off unexpectedly.

Traveling haul was again used, but in a more realistic scenario.

It's kind of fun to be a traveling haul patient, especially when there's a tether to the top rope grab!

The weather was perfect, and we could enjoy being out under the ponderosa pines.

My brother was taking the course, and we had a chance to climb rope next to each to get out of the cave. I couldn't resist getting a selfie!

Looks like my photos end here. The last day was the scenario day, where the students try out different techniques on the problems they're presented. We went to a different cave so they'd have some new challenges. Everyone did very well.

I've ended up spending quite a bit of time teaching NCRC classes, but I find that it's something I really enjoy. And hopefully what I teach will help someone who's in a bad situation.

If you're interested in cave rescue, you can learn more about training at the NCRC website. And you can read about cave rescues at the American Caving Accident website.
Cave safely!