Finally Caught Up

Since I have finally caught up with all of my OAR trips and other travels, posts will most likely become less frequent until I can think of some clever way to transition between trips. 

Vertical Practice Round Two

After such a successful first vertical practice, Mike decided to hold another this week. I came over early to help him sort through the gear and to practice rescue techniques. By the time people started to show up, I was in full gear and attached to a complicated-looking pulley system. We were having difficulty replicating a cave rescue situation because I was on the ground level. So, I detached myself and we decided to start practice. I gave up my gear to someone and tried to teach a group of people about the gear itself and how to changeover from ascending to rappelling. It started to rain lightly, just enough to cool everyone down.

After a few hours, Mike decided to rig the pulleys for another purpose: vertical caving treadmill. It was the strangest thing to watch. Essentially, Nina, who was in full caving gear, started ascending up a rope that was threaded through a pulley. Mike had the other end of the rope and he was feeding it through the rack. So, as Nina ascended, Mike would feed more rope and she would stay in the same place in the air. This way, she could actually ascend most of the rope instead of only the 30 or so feet to the top of the tree. Mike also tried a few rescue techniques and learned that if he ascended while Nina was just hooked in to the rope, they could both move up. We played around with the ropes and the gear for a while, attempting to try a bunch of different rescue techniques and vertical training. 

Events occurred: September 25, 2013

Cloudy with a Chance of Rain and Misery

When I realized that there was a trip going through Jacksonville, I decided to invite my brother's girlfriend, Jessica. She has been dying to go on a legitimate hiking trip and Grayson Highlands combined with Roan Mountain seemed perfect. So, I invited her. While at lunch with Mike, Chelsea, and Kelsey, Mike convinced me to also invite my mother along, claiming he would only go if she did. Chelsea and Kelsey both refused, citing the rain and homework among other reasons against it. So, only a few hours later, Mike successfully convinced Chelsea that the 90%-100% chance of rain we had discussed at lunch had actually been 20% and she unknowingly embarked on an extremely rain-filled trip.

The drive up to Grayson was about 9 or so hours and we had made plans to meet up with the rest of the group at a campsite. We got there around 3 AM with no cell service and pitched our tents, anticipating their arrival a few hours later. When we woke up, they were still not there. We drove in the direction that we guessed was correct, my gas light glaring at me. When the prospect of gas seemed dim, we turned around and headed back down the windy roads toward Damascus. When we filled up, I finally got service and Brice, who was officially leading the trip, told me they had decided to drive straight to Grayson and start hiking. We headed toward Grayson, planning to hike alone. The biggest problem was that I was the only person who had been there before and it had been two years prior. I had no idea which trail to take and the map was virtually useless.

We hiked around Grayson for several hours in the pouring rain. Mike and I were the only ones even close to adequately prepared, decked out in rain pants and rain jackets with covers for our backpacks. My mom had left her rain jacket in the car entirely and no one else had rain pants at all. My shoes were also waterproof, keeping my feet warm and dry. While the majority of the group was shivering and freezing, I was sweating in my flannel and rain jacket, regretting so many layers. They were not amused by this. After wandering around the AT and some spur trails, the group lost some morale and turned back. We had spotted a bull but no ponies and the fog was impenetrable. We piled in the car, everyone dripping (except for me and Mike). We headed to the Blue Blaze Cafe in Damascus, where we ran into the rest of the trip. I really only spoke to Rhea, and she detailed us with the misery of their trip. They arrived at 5 or 6 AM and decided to hike immediately, breaking once at a shelter to nap and then trekking through the rain. It sounded pretty awful to me.

That night, my mom decided to spring for a hotel room about an hour out from Roan. We spent the evening drying out and relaxing. The next morning, we slept in until nearly 11 AM and then piled into the car for Roan. We started at Carver's Gap on the Tennessee/North Carolina border and hiked for maybe half a mile before running into Rhea and two other girls on her trip, lying on a big boulder. We stopped and chatted with them. They explained that the boys decided to hike all of Roan in one day and they didn't feel that ambitious. They were going to hang out and then pick the guys up at the end. We sat with them for a few hours before heading back down to the car. The best part of the trip? SPICE JUNCTION. It's the all-you-can-eat Indian buffet in Columbia, South Carolina and it is the best. Mike and I are huge fans (no one else was quite as enthused). We made it back to Gainesville before 1 AM, exhausted after a long weekend. 

Events occurred: September 20-22, 2013 

Vertical Caving, Exploration, and Expectations

The Friday following vertical practice, Mike decided to lead an actual vertical caving trip. Rather than hitting up the same old caves, we decided to try something new. Armed with GPS coordinates, we headed toward the TAG caving area. We were unable to find our first cave that Friday night, so we camped in a random field and decided to try in the morning. After driving around for several hours, we parked off the side of the road and attempted hiking in. This was unsuccessful. We were met with a wall of thorns and had to tear through the jungle. We eventually found what appeared to be a trail, but no cave. We hunted all day and even discovered a new cave that had never been explored. Logel, Mike, and I dug out the entrance and Mike rappelled the 15 or so feet down. It was cool to have found a cave but it was very small.






To keep up the morale, we left the area and decided to go to Cemetery Pit, an old favorite. I had been there with Mike and Steph about nine months prior. Mike and I rigged the ropes and I was the first one down, stopping every so often to untangle the rope and toss it over ledges. We were only able to explore Cemetery for a few hours because we had gotten such a late start but it was worth it. We traversed a sketchy ledge about 50 or so feet from the ground and played around in some mud, which surprisingly dried quickly. We emerged around 11 PM or so, a repeat of my time with Mike and Steph sans snow, and headed to Huddle House, the only open restaurant for miles.










The next morning, we woke up to some cavers headed for Cemetery. We talked to them and discovered that they had been at Moses' Tomb the day before, the cave we had been searching for. We got directions and headed back to Alabama. We found it and after a short hike, we started rigging up ropes and gear. Since this particular pit was about 230 feet and had limited horizontal caving, we decided to stagger so that one person wasn't waiting at the bottom in the cold for four people to ascend. Mike went down first with his camera, followed by Logel and James. Then, Logel and James ascended up in tandem, meaning that they were both on the rope at the same time. They only simul-climbed for about 40 feet or so out of the 230. Then, Nina rappelled down and I followed shortly thereafter. As soon as I reached the bottom, Mike ascended out. Nina ascended out with him in tandem and I waited for him to get off before I hopped on. Despite it's length, the ascent seemed easier than the ascent for Cemetery, which is less than 200 feet. I was out fairly quickly with minimal problem. The only moment of panic I had was when the carabiner holding my chest harness snapped, but luckily it wasn't a big deal. I had an extra carabiner on my gear loop, so after a few seconds of fiddling around with the gear, I had resolved the problem and could continue ascending. Overall, an excellent day.

Events occurred: September 13-15, 2013

Alden King, Professor of Changeovers

Our first vertical caving practice of the semester was extremely well attended. When I arrived, a little before it was supposed to start, there were already at least 10 people there. I had hoped to be early enough to practice a changeover without watchful eyes but I had no such luck. Mike threw the bag of harnesses at me and told me to start teaching while he finished setting up the ropes. I was under the influence of a trenta iced coffee from Starbucks and I was extremely jittery, struggling to get my caving harness on with shaking hands. I'm sure I looked very trustworthy. As I was pulling my harness on, I was explaining the various pieces of caving gear to a group of anxious novices. 

Once Mike had the ropes up, he took a small group of late arrivals over to explain gear while I shuffled the rest toward the rope and performed a changeover for them. Though I can explain them conceptually, I found it difficult to narrate while I was doing it myself. It took a while but I eventually got it and then started instructing the new people on the ropes. Some of them struggled, some of them figured it out instantaneously but overall, everyone got it eventually. It was fun to try my hand at teaching and I think it really engrained the information in my head. After three hours of practice, I felt pretty satisfied as I sat on the ground and coiled up the ropes for another day. 

Events occurred: September 11, 2013

Paddling In The Darkness

Mike and I met at the Gear Shed once again, just before 5:30. We threw two paddles and two pfds in the back of his Forester, then loaded a canoe on his surf racks. We arrived at a put in about two thirds of the way down the path Nelson had outlined on the website. There weren't any other cars there but we made sure they had overnight parking. We piled into the canoe with a tent, our sleeping bags and pads, food and water, and a machete. We kept running through possible scenarios of our interaction with the rest of the trip when we caught up: have me run through the woods in the dark screaming while Mike chases me with the machete, use our southern redneck accents and enact a dialogue in which I try to convince Cletus (Mike) to leave them nice kids alone this time since Bertha (me) wasn't gonna clean up the mess this time, etc... We paddled through the darkness until we came upon a decent campground area after 11 PM and decided we would try again in the morning. We also kept talking about various what-ifs, such as the canoe breaking, since no one knew where we were.

So, Mike and I settled on our campground and set up the tent. We pulled all of our gear out of the canoe and then he tied it off to a nearby tree. The mosquitos were vicious, so I ducked into the tent almost immediately. Rather than bringing my thick down sleeping bag, I opted for my fleece liner and this was an excellent choice. The next morning, Mike's alarm started going off and he just kept hitting the snooze button, over and over. Eventually, we decided to give in and wake up. We broke down the tent and everything, packing up with the intention of heading farther upstream. At this point, I was extremely sore. We had paddle some 7 or 8 miles upstream the night before. We headed upstream again, trying to hunt them down. We came upon a boat ramp about a mile or two up river and pulled over. I stayed in the boat to watch the shore while Mike checked out the campground. No luck, so we got back in the boat. We kept paddling upstream, stopping a few times and tying off to a tree on the shore, waiting for them to emerge. We, again, had no luck. So we decided to go back downstream toward the car. 

Our paddling efforts virtually died off and we let the current carry us for a lot of the way back. We spotted tons of turtles and birds, a baby alligator, a not-so-baby alligator, and Mike saw a river otter (I missed it). Mike kept standing up to paddle rather than sitting. It looked really funny, especially since he was wearing his straw hat and his long sleeved shirt. As we approached Honey Isle campground, we heard tons of voices and got hopeful. Alas, it was just a bunch of local Floridians (five or more powerboats) jumping off of the rope swings and blasting country music. Suffice to say we paddled away as quickly as possible. Several powerboats drove past us, some slowing and others choosing not to do so.

We made it back to the car and loaded everything up, unsuccessful in our endeavor. We then decided to do some off roading in the Forester with the canoe on top. It was so much fun, especially because we were on roads with giant bumps and puddles. We did that for over an hour and then headed back to Gainesville. We had gone to the take out at Cypress, where we thought Nelson was headed but there were no signs of the trailer or any cars. We assumed they had beat us out but when we returned to the gear shed, the canoes still weren't back. It was strange indeed.

Events occurred: September 7-8, 2013

Oversleeping and Lake Wauburg

The following weekend I was signed up for yet another paddling trip, leaving Saturday at 8 AM and returning Sunday evening. Since I had no class on Friday, I spent the day in Jacksonville with my family. As I was driving back, Mike texted me to hang out and we ended up staying out until past 3 AM. Suffice to say, neither one of us made it for the 8 AM departure time. We decided to meet up at the Gear Shed at 11, grab a canoe, and catch up with the crowd. When we arrived at the Gear Shed however, we were both too exhausted to even fathom paddling. So, we each returned to our respective homes and wasted the day away.

I decided to go to Lake Wauburg to meet up with my friend Angela, who I hadn't seen since the previous April. We sat on the shore, talking and soaking up the sun for a few hours. Then, I went swimming at Lake Wauburg for the first time ever. Well, the first time ever intentionally, since I have fallen off of countless sailboats. The water was warm and murky but I didn't care. I was grateful that my day hadn't gone entirely to waste. Around 4:30 or so, I received a text from Mike about the paddling trip. He knew some coordinates for a put in on the Ocklawaha River, so we could try going upstream and intercepting them. I promptly left Wauburg and headed home to pack, with no idea what I was getting in to.

Events occurred: September 7, 2013