Trip Leader Alden, At Your Service

When Mike texted me and asked me if I wanted to co-lead a vertical caving trip, I was ecstatic. The original plan was to have two cars and I would lead one, he would lead the other, but we ended up with only one car. Still, we planned everything together and he let me set anchors and make decisions. The ultimate goal of this trip was Signal Light. Last time we had gone, Mike had spotted some breakdown leading up but our group didn't want to keep going so we left it alone. Though neither of us had been able to get our hands on a map, we had a theory that the cave kept going for a while. 

We drove up Friday night and camped near Chattanooga. Lindsay and I stayed in the car while Mike, Chelsea, and Nina camped in tents. Considering that the latter all woke up with frost on their sleeping bags, I have no regrets. We started the day in Howard's Cave but ended up spending barely any time there because there was also a church group of about 20 and a group from Georgia Tech of at least 20. The cave was much too crowded for our liking, so we headed to Rusty's Cave. Ironically, Rusty's was named in honor of a guy who discovered it but died saving a group of boy scouts from Howard's. Rusty's is a pretty cool cave and this time I was able to sprint through it because I was familiar with the terrain. We emerged from Rusty's fairly quickly and grabbed dinner at a somewhat nearby restaurant, Randy's, that had fantastic calzones.

The next day, we started exploring my baby, Signal Light. Again, I set up one rope and Mike set up another. We only ended up with one photo from the whole trip, a group photo in Signal Light. We headed back to the muddy passage, which was sadly less muddy than before. The water that had been waist deep was now just puddles interlaced with the mud. We engaged in an intense mud fight, throwing thick peanut butter mud at one another and rolling around in the mud. I loved it. I have always loved to play in mud and this mud was perfect. After a fair amount of time here, we headed up the breakdown. We hunched over, crawled, and rolled for about 20 minutes until we emerged in a huge room with a lake. Mike and I looked for ways around the water but we saw nothing good. So, with Nina taking the first plunge, we decided to swim across. When I submerged my body in the water from the neck down, I thought I was drowning. The water was so cold that I felt as if my lungs were collapsing. I struggled to keep my head above water and all I could see was Mike's headlamp a few feet in front of me. He pulled me out of the water and I shivered continuously through the rest of the cave. We continued to crawl through some more and after a few hours, the group decided to turn around. We headed back for the surface only to discover that it was raining. Mike and I decided to ascend up last and on the same rope, allowing the other three to get to the top as quickly as possible on both ropes and then take one of the ropes down and head for the car. We headed up and I threw the rope in a jumbled mess over my shoulder after he was at the top. We sprinted down to a nearby gas station, where the others were waiting. I stripped down to my shirt and spandex shorts with no shoes and sprinted to my car, trying to avoid getting it all muddy from my jacket, jeans and shoes. Everyone loaded their caving clothing into plastic bags and changed in the bathrooms at the gas station. We then headed into Chattanooga and met Lindsay's dad for dinner before heading back to Gainesville, since he was in Chattanooga too. 

Though it didn't feel like I fully led my own trip, it was nice to see that Mike had confidence in me to make decisions and set anchors for caving, one of the most difficult types of OAR trips to lead. 

Events occurred: February 8-10, 2013