Kathryn Louise

April 20, 2020April 20, 2020

Adventures: Spacegoat 2019, pt 3

Our first day of caving we split into a couple different groups: Brian took a group to push a lead from out last trip, Galen lead a survey trip through the Northwest Passage, Daryl lead an intro trip, and I believe one other group went in search of a cliff side lead. I went with Daryl’s group (I’m always a little nervous the first time caving in a while).

We decided to do a loop trip: in through the Dead Bat Bypass to the Junction Room, then back through the Mystery Passage. The Bypass is a climb up that transitions into a pretty tight squeeze down into a passage. I’m really glad I re-read my notes from 2015 right before we left for the trip – I went first through the bypass and almost got stuck. It’s a passage that you should really take your vertical gear off before squeezing through, but I forgot that until I started to slide into it and got caught on my croll (chest ascender). I waited until Kai got up to the top of the rope, then redistributed my weight and vertical gear and was able to slide down to the passage below.

The passage in the photo above is one that gives me pause the first time I’m through it every trip. I was last in line when we got to this part of the cave, with Amy right in front of me. About in the same spot I am in that photo, I kind of froze. I kept telling myself I’ve been through this passage before. I’ve flown through this passage before. I knew I needed to stem across with a hand or a leg, but couldn’t get myself to do it. Amy was super helpful and told me how she navigated the passage and was extremely patient as I figured it out.
It’s not often I get to cave with other Lady Cavers. It’s really nice. I hope it happens more often in the future.

When we got out of the cave, our sweet Adventure Pup was waiting for us! We thought he might go back down to camp with Bob and Mike, but there he was, waiting so patiently under the tree we hung out stuff in. I was nervous about leaving him while we were in the cave (Daryl has gone caving with other dogs and they’ve entertained themselves while the humans were caving, but I hadn’t done it before) and I was so happy to see his glowing eyes when we got out of the cave!

Up, up, up. The hardest part of the entire trip is the last push up the hill to the cave.

The next two days I joined Galen on the survey trip. On the second day of survey (my first day) we got a ton of footage and I was super stoked to push ahead to the Connection Passage with Kathy’s Icebox. Daryl and his brother Mike found the connection about ten years ago. In 2015 Daryl, Brian, and I made the first through trip and in 2019 I got to survey it so it’s officially on the map. Our last day of survey was a loong one, but we finished it!

On our last full day, most of the group took a trip up to the Plateau. Daryl, Brian, Adam, Caitlin, and I took a rest day at camp, playing cards and starting to pack up. The following morning the horses arrived and we packed our gear all back up. We sent faster hikers out first to meet the packers at the trail head. Daryl, Kai, Riley, and I took up the rear.

I love my little family.

After we got back to the trailhead, we all drank a beer, threw our gear in the back of Brian’s truck, then hit the road to get bacon cheeseburgers at the Buckhorn Bar.

While out in the woods, I recorded for an episode of my favorite podcast, She Explores. I reached out to Gale kind of on a whim about six months before the trip – I couldn’t believe it when she emailed me back and was interested in a story!
The audio while in the woods wasn’t great (I should’ve found a wind screen to borrow as well), but I still think it’s a pretty great episode. A friend who also listens to She Explores said about halfway through the episode she realized it was me!

Today’s adventure took place on land stolen from the Niitsítpiis-stahkoii, Salish Kootenai, and Ktunaxa.

November 3, 2019

Adventures: Spacegoat 2019, pt 1

Every year I look forward to our summer trips to Montana for caving. Daryl has been caving in Scapegoat since the early 2000s and I started caving there in 2013. There is so much cave and so many projects and it is so much fun!

This year we had a group! (All my previous trips have been just two or three of us.) We had cavers from the Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto, the Cascade Grotto, and the Cleveland Grotto (he drove all the way from Ohio for the trip!)!

I tried a new food packing technique this year, where I packaged food into different days, with items like nuts, cheese, chocolate (things we snack on often and will have multiple days) getting moved from bag to bag as the week progressed.
It was a step in the right direction of food packing, but it’s definitely still a draft of a system. Every trip we take I make note of what we eat each day – this year I took it a step further and weighed each bulk item and then weighed them again when we got home. My goal is to one day pack exactly the right amount of food for a trip.

I ordered a brand new caving suit for this trip and I opted for a two piece – the Adventure Verticale Taka Jacket and Fornocal Pant. (My other suit is a cordura Meander suit.)
I’ll write a more thorough review once I’ve used it a couple more times, but here are my first impressions after a week of caving:
+ I love how long the jacket is (it covers my butt). I never once got a dreaded gap between jacket and pants.
– My seat harness often worked its way above the belt of my pants. Once I realized what was happening, I became more aware of making sure the belt was fully above my seat harness. It wasn’t as much of a problem after I started doing this, but I definitely had to readjust my pants after getting off rope.
+ Having a jacket and pants rather than a one piece made it much easier to get my layers set underneath.
+ Because the jacket is so long, I was able to open it almost all the way, take my arms out of it and put on/take off a fleece layer, then put the jacket back on without having to take my vertical gear off to readjust or tuck it back in.
– The suit is a ripstop like material and does not breathe. All my sweat stayed trapped on the suit. It wasn’t a huge problem, as I never got cold (it’s all about the base [layers]), but it did mean when I took my fleece off and just had a tshirt on, my arms got wet from the moisture trapped on the suit.

I’m excited to go on more trips soon so I can continue this list of pros and cons (and because I can’t wait to go caving again).

When we visited Lizommy we picked a bunch of apples from their backyard. Since Liz has also been to Scapegoat, it seemed fitting to bake a pie with their apples for the Spacegoat Expedition!

We left for Missoula early Saturday morning (I believe we broke a record and were driving by 5:30am!). We stopped a couple times, but otherwise drove straight thru and made it just in time for our friends wedding! After the reception, everyone went downtown to see Leftover Salmon at the River City Roots Fest – including the bride and groom still in their wedding outfits. <3

The following morning we drove to Augusta and had lunch with Brian at the Buckhorn Bar (a must stop if you are in town), before heading to Benchmark to meet everyone at the campground.
A couple hours after we all got to camp, our packer stopped by and dropped off the panniers for us to pack up. Everyone put their personal gear being packed in in one pile and their group gear in another pile and then we Tetris’d together 70lb bags for the next couple of hours.

Papoose Cave – June 9-11, 2018

At the beginning of June we went on a multi-grotto caving trip to Papoose in Idaho. There were 19 cavers from 6 different grottos in attendance! (Cascade Grotto, Gem State Grotto, Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto, Oregon Grotto, Silver Sage Grotto, and Detroit Urban Grotto)

A couple days before we left for Idaho I came down with a cold. I was feeling a lot better, but not 100%, so I elected to not go caving on Saturday. Riley and I stayed at camp with Larry and Rob. During the day while everyone else was in the cave we had all the weather – rain, sunshine, hail, and snow. We added to the kitchen tarpology to provide a covered place near the fire.

Such a conundrum – would I really rather be drinking a Great Burn beer when I have Fort George 3-Way? Hmm.

After everyone left on Monday, we went on a de-rigging mission. Riley wanted to come too!

This is the most water anyone has seen at the entrance of this cave. Last time we were here, the entrance was completely dry.

Waiting while Daryl de-rigged the second drop.

After getting back to camp, we changed clothes and then started our way home (we broke down camp completely before heading into the cave – slowly we’re figuring out how to be more efficient!). We stopped for lunch and a beer at the Rants & Raves taphouse in Riggins, then hit the road.

Riley is very rarely completely exhausted after a trip, so it’s easy to see when it’s been a great trip for him! Everyone at camp loved him and he got almost everyone to throw a stick for him at least once. There were so many smells and trees to pee on! Plus, he got to sleep in the tent with us, which means puppy cuddles all night long!