27/28 June 2009
Rod and I were the only two willing to take on the bowels of Wee Jasper. But that didn't stop us.......
Rod arrived in Wee J first and went to play find-a-karst while he waited for me to show up which I did about an hour and a half later. I joined him in scratching around a pile of boulders for a while searching for particular numbers. We found several cave openings that were untagged. This did nothing to identify which cluster of Karst we were poking around. Eventually I suggested we go and have a chat to Steve, the ranger of Wee Jasper Reserves. If anyone knew where to look, it might be him. Steve remembered Rod from last time when he was searching for John, who at that time, had proved to be more elusive than Karsts. We learned that we had been searching the correct area.
Poor weather had been forecast for the weekend so I had taken a cabin at the local pub which was now run by a lovely hospitable lady named Janet, who had bought out the formidable and unfriendly Angela. It was at the bar that night that we met locals, some of whom were happy to talk about caves on their property, and an invitation to explore was issued, which will be taken up next time. Steve the Ranger was there too and accepted our invitation to explore Dangly Bits cave the next day.
Saturday morning and our first adventure was to go into the Dip Series and explore the series 3 extension. Last time Rod and I were in there, we went as far as we could without ropes (we'd left them back in the Main Chamber), so this time we armed ourselves with all the gear and squeezed down a rat-hole (yes there's two rat-holes in Dip), downclimbed, slithered, grunted and squeezed our way back to the furtherest chamber shown on the map. We climbed the far wall with difficulty, (I had the luxury of a hand-line this time) and reached the point where we turned back last time. Using the handline, Rod carefully made his way over the other side down to a boulder and rigged for an abseil into the unknown. It was an awkward, tricky start holding onto the hand-line with back wedged against the wall while connecting to the rope, then swinging around and into space. Rod made it look hard. I quickly followed much more gracefully.
The abseil deposited us into a large, wet chamber. Until now the cave had been dry. But here water was dripping off everything. There more decorations here and no evidence of caver's traffic. This chamber does not appear on the map in the Wee jasper book. We climbed the slippery far wall of this chamber and the cave ended here. We found a pool of water in an alcove. There was evidence of cave movement with a two inch gap in a large formation. Exploration of anything that looked like a hole proved fruitless. There was nowhere else to go so we turned back. The 12m ascent wasn't too bad. But getting over the edge at the top was interesting. With the anchor not allowing us to get over the edge, and having to transfer to the hand-line and disconnect whilst bracing against slippery walls this was not for the faint-hearted!
Exploration of series 3 extension over, we retraced our steps (and slithers and grunts) back to the rat-hole we downclimbed. I made good use of Rod the Mobile Hand and Foot-hold to get up, and set a hand-line for him. After lots of new technical cave maneuvers, (complete with sound effects), he made it out.
Back to the cabin where we had lunch and waited for Ranger Steve to join us. Next adventure - Dangly Bits cave. This cave has three openings and Rod had already identified one so in we went. Not bad - but lots of evidence of the cave being used by wildlife. There were animal droppings, bones and even swallow's nests! Openings to crawl through everywhere, most of which went nowhere! But one went. Steve led the way until it got a bit too tight. Rod tried and failed. I persevered, pushing my helmet in front of me. The roof was pressing on my back as I slithered through powdery dust at least an inch thick, pushing it ahead of me like a grader. I might have travelled about 20m when suddenly I could stand in a small chamber. Immediately I was struck with a blinding headache and felt faint. What the? I called out I was turning back and found out no-one had followed me. Back through the dust I had stirred up. Must be why no-one had followed me. Back outside where my blinding headache became a blinding pain and I had to sit for a while.
Around the corner from the entrance we took, we found the next entrance, which was actually the main entrance. And then we found the Dangly Bit! Rod rushed over to it and striking a pose, looked at me expectantly. "What?" I says. "Take a photo" says he who is not camera shy. Naturally the boys had to be boys and do boy things with the Dangly Bit.........
Once playing with the Dangly Bit was over, we pushed on and found a nice little climb of 3m. Rod found a hole that twisted upwards and contorted himself trying to get up it. I was sent down another hole (note to self - must put on weight). This hole went and I came out into the small chamber where I had met with my blinding headache earlier. But no headache this time!!! Thats really odd......I rejoined the boys and after checking out all the passages and holes we could find, headed back out. Before the exit we found a nice passage with a beautiful pristine false floor. Crawling beneath it, we found a lovely little pool in the far end of the floor. Rod turned back to find the final opening to the cave that is supposed to allow voice connection while Steve and I pressed on to say hello. But we couldn't go any further and rejoined Rod on the surface. The walk back to the cars turned into a Karst finding expedition with many tagged openings found.
Sunday dawned overcast and wet. Rod and I set off to look at the untagged openings we found on Friday afternoon. The first looked promising. A 15m rap in. "It goes" called Rod. So in I went. Then out I went after we explored maybe 5m in each direction.
On to the next hole. Rod abseiled a very tight 20m hole while I waited on top while he decided if it went. Obviously it didn't. Up he came. Unhappily for Rod my enthusiasm for karst exploring didn't match his and the wet weather came to my rescue. Not feeling 100% and worried about battling roos on my back roads drive home, I called it a day and left Rod happily pottering around with his GPS looking for Karst. I think he came back!
Photos of the trip are here
http://imageevent.com/jburton/caving/weejasperjune2009 Julie
