CCC '01, Part 2
Seneca Rocks and Bowden Cave
Sept 7-9, 2001to Part 1
Winging westward on Friday morning, Amy and I had great plans for what promissed to be a lovely weekend in terms of weather. Indeed, things couldn't have been better when we set out from the Seneca parking lot at a little after noon. After a sweaty hike up to the north peak and back down the other side, we set up shop at the base of Roux (5.2*) in the early afternoon. Amy has been climbing for some time but had accomplished only two short leads up to this point. I'd been teaching her what little I know about the art of trad leading and various more experienced people had contributed knowledge as well. Never-the-less, we were both nervous and excited about a committing Seneca lead.
Roux is a two pitch climb which starts on the east face of the north peak and heads up and right to the north summit. I'd done the first pitch before, but had only hazy ideas as to where it went from there. Jangling with ten pounds of gear (trad lead is a weighty business!), Amy tied in and started up the first pitch. She climbed slowly, carefully placing gear frequently and being very aware of her surroundings. I stayed below enjoying the novelty of lead belay and discovering how boring it could be. Amy reported that the pro wasn't so great up there which didn't surprise me; a lot of the low-rating climbs at Seneca have pretty spotty gear. At length she reached the first belay ledge 90 feet up and built an anchor. She brought me up the easy climb and I cleaned the gear.
The next pitch headed across some undulating, chunky ledges to the right and up toward the summit, hidden from view. The pro on this pitch was even more scanty, and she sunk less metal this time around. Unsure where to go, she stopped at a small abeyment with a tree looking both east and west on the ridge and set up a complicated, four-point anchor. The shadows in the valley below were lengthening and it was getting a little chilly. At great length, I followed up the traverse and cleaned the gear. Except for the micronut I found clipped to the rope and lying on top of a rock, all the placements were textbook and completely bomber. Good job!
Sensing her mental fatigue from two long pitches, I took over for the final push and lead about twenty feet up to the actual summit ridge. She could have stretched out the second pitch to get here, but rope drag would have been an issue. We donned normal footwear and hiked out.
Back at camp, dinner was cooked as folks straggled in from their own adventures or the long drives. A very social evening ensued around the campfire and elsewhere with people finally drifting off to bed after a spectacular moon-rise around 11.
Saturday - The day dawned foggy and cool. Everything was soaked from the heavy dew as gear was sorted and plans made. Tom lead a caving trip to Trout Cave with five in attendance and various others went out to top-rope on the Lower Slabs. Amy and I saddled up for more lead climbing and joined George Cummings and Gary Lay on the hike in. Our plan was to climb Conn's East (5.5*), the same climb we had backed off of after two pitches in June. George and Gary were headed for Conn's West (5.3*) for Gary's first Seneca lead. "See you at the summit!" I yelled as we parted company headed for opposite faces of the rock.
The day was getting distinctly hot and the steep trail up the east side wasn't helping things. By the time we had surmounted the challenging fourth-class scramble up to Upper Broadway, we were dripping with sweat. Two gentlemen from Cumberland, Tracy and Jeff, were ahead of us was climbing the first pitch of Conn's East to get at Soler (5.7*) above.
There had been two spots on the first pitch which had given me trouble before. The first was a large chockstone in a chimney fairly low down while the second was a committing layback traverse around a ledge with scant holds. This time around I negotiated the chockstone with a slightly more graceful mantle move than the beached-whale maneuver of last time. At the layback ledge, I put in a hex and a nut and traversed onto the face before going up; reachy, but much less wiggy. Feeling pretty good about life and shooting the breeze with Tracy, I set up a belay below a large chimney and brought Amy up.
"Like most 5.5's at Seneca, Conn's East has no more the three or four 5.8 moves" -- anonymous |
An Ohioan named Jim was climbing up Alcoa Presents (5.8*) from below and was good enough to pause while I climbed through. I opted for the overhanging crack and found it most enjoyably committing. A dozen feet up, the route traversed to the right over a bulge and and through a small bush (probably would have arrived here via the juggy bulge route below as well) and I set up another belay from a pair of bolts on huge ledge.
Pitch four again headed left and up an over-arching flake well-separated from the face and fairly thin. After placing all my large gear (a monster cam and two large hexen) and nearly standing on a praying mantis the size of a hotdog, I pulled the flake/roof and got to easier territory. Suddenly I found myself looking 1000' down in three directions and realized I was at the top of Gunsight to South Peak Direct (5.4*). I spent some time setting up a belay and finally brough Amy up the penultimate pitch.
The final pitch involves a "walk, crawl or slither across to the true South Summit". Imagine walking on an uneven surface the width of a sidewalk with sheer drops on either side. Fortunately the wind was calm and visibility was good. I was feeling good and placed three or four traverse peices as I went. Several people were already sitting at the cramped summit and I saw Gary Lay hove into view. Hah! Told you we'd meet up here! Amy came up from the north and George from the south. There was much rejoicing and taking of pictures. Then a hip-belay down to the ledge below the summit and the long rapell back down.
By the time the four of us got out of the eminently refreshing swimming hole, it was getting pretty dim. We joined Tom, Ben and Jill at the Front Porch for the best damn pizza in the world and discussed the days adventures. Tom's crew had had an excellant time in Trout and gotten all the way back to the square room. Eventually, we drifted back to the campfire and stayed up until moonrise again.
 The downstream entrance to the Water Course. Photo by Aaron Teske |
I've been staring at the Bowden map for some time. The Gangsta Mappers finished mapping this cave last year and the map shows the quality of their work. But I've never actually been there, so this was a chance to put the map to work. The initial Big Room was large and could have accomodated tennis matches or contra dances, if you didn't mind the uneven mud floor sloped at a few degrees down to the babbling stream in the back. We sat around and played with our headlamps until we'd gotten our cave eyes. Aaron, who had done the thru-trip before, lead the way up the broad, walking, stream passage. Mostly we stuck to the upper shelves and didn't get our feet wet. At length, the stream diverged to a lower level and we walked in high, dry walking corridor with occasional huge breakdown blocks.
Eventually, the stream rejoined the walking passage. I ducked under the low roof and walked downstream a bit marvelling at the lovely water-carved streambed and small waterfalls. I've always found that you have more fun if you get your feet wet early! Back in the main passage, we found ourselves in narrower passage with a soaring ceiling dozens of feet overhead. Some cracks in the ceiling of the Star Room showed where water had initially seaped in and carved the passage. The light, sandy ceiling looked much like a miniaturized version of the badlands inverted and stuck to the roof. Beautiful.
Another 500' of wandering brought us to the Breakdown Room. A short ladder and some narrow canyon brought us to the Shower Room where, in times of higher water flow, a 30' waterfall plumets from a high, narrow dome into a round room. Today not a trace of falling water was to be seen, but the chamber was lovely none-the-less. Aaron and I erased some grafitti and I picked up another half dozen cigarette butts. Now the room was a bit more beautiful. We retreated to the large Breakdown room and had some lunch.
Amy looking overly gleeful in the Water Course. Photo by Aaron Teske.
Next up, we traversed the Water Course. In times of high-water, this can be a waist-deep or higher bit of nasty slogging. But today we were greated with a 2' wide by 8' high crack in the wall with a small stream flowing noisily over fascinatingly circular holes. A strong breeze rushed out toward us. I eagerly delved forward into the unknown. There were several hundred feet of walking passage which got narrow occasionally. Amy and some of the others stayed walking on the wall shelves, but I found it faster going to just forge through the water. We curved around this way and that. Beautiful! Just when this was starting old, we emerged into a larger room where the way was blocked by large breakdown. Flecks of gold on the walls and ceiling showed where water droplets were refracting our light. Up and over the blocks and back into the stream.
There followed quite a lot of fairly large passage sloping from the upper left to the lower right where the stream babbled along. Much of the passage was blocked with large breakdown and it was an arduous journey going up and over. Things became easier when Amy discovered the Pendant Room. Instead of breakdown, the floor was mud with a carved waterway through the middle. From the ceiling hung these bizzare carved stone (as opposed to stalactite) formations which looked like cow udders connected by narrow necks of stone to the ceiling. Very strange and extensive.
Yours Truly in the weird, weird Pendant Room. Photo by Aaron Teske.
There was conciderable life in this cave, more than I've seen in most. Numerous, solitary bats were seen clinging to the walls like terrified, inverted mice. A few small cave crickets were also seen, much to Amy's abiding horror. None of the endangered snails were found, but there were scores of inch-long, armored centipedes crawling about and frequent tiny mothes or flies attracted to our light sources (fatally, in the case of Aaron and his carbide lamp). The wildlife highlight of the day came when Amy found a three-inch salamander recently missing a chunk of tail near the Throne Room.
We'd been in the cave for some time at this point and had gotten into a tempo of winding along through broad, tall passages. At junctions, we'd keep to the right and follow the stream; according to the map, to the left lay many mazes and areas with forbidding names like 'Dusty's Terrible Triangle Trap', 'High Muck-a-muck' and 'A-Maze-Ing Section'. The ceiling started to get lower and the walls closed in. We were forced to crawl through some sections. Passages split off left and right and we located the correct one through process of elimination: if it lead back to the stream, it was the right one.
Finally we came to a small chamber where things appeared to dead-end. A black arrow pointed down at a 20' wide, 15" tall space between a gravel-covered floor and a massive stone ceiling. This was the much-anticipated 'Pauline's Crawl'-- 350 feet of wide, gravelly belly-crawling which lead to the way out. Aaron, who can belly-crawl like a demon despite being over six feet tall, lead the way. Graham is small and lithe and followed in Aaron's wake doing a fair impression of a Komodo dragon persuing a wild pig. Amy slithered painfully along on her side when possible and on her belly otherwise. A few hundred feet in she had some things to say about Pauline, the disadvantages of large-chested women, knee-pads, and several other choice invectives. "If I meet this Pauline Chick, I'm going to harm her." I didn't mention that I know Pauline and that they probably share many views on this particular belly crawl. I hate belly crawling with a blue passion though at least this one was dry not an inch deep in liquid mud. Grimly, I brought up the rear using either the standard tiger crawl or my personal favorite log roll technique.
The map lead us true through several branches (thanks Gangstas!) and we eventually, bruised and sore, emerged into the Piss-A-Re-A and could stand up (and piss, too). We were almost out, but there was one more surprise; a lovely, deep, dead-end canyon. Some climbing brought us to the top flank of the canyon and the Hairy Traverse. Someone had rigged a couple bolts and a hand line over the 30' deep pit. Never-the-less, the traverse was aptly named and the three-foot step across onto a small ledge was an exciting way to finish the cave. One by one, we emerged from the small Third Entrance into the fading afternoon sun on the sides of a the dry Bickle Run. I investigated the numerous other entrances in the area. Then we hiked back to the car feeling very much satisfied and headed for dinner and home.
A great trip. Truly, a classic CCC adventure. Good people, good weather, good, solid adventure and not a lot of sleep. Ah, the good life!
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