30 Aug South Toohey Ridge 2013
In 2007, a team of divers consisting of Brian Williams, Matt Vinzant, and Mark Wenner along with a large support team took on the exploration challenge of cracking South Toohey Ridge. Also joining them were Jill Heinerth and Jerry Murphy to complete a second dive team.
Left to right: Brent Cooper, Mike Young, Michael Wright, Mark Wenner, Stephanie Petri, Brian Williams, and Matt Vinzant. Photo by Brian Williams.
The challenge of running two dive teams and their associated mounds of gear to the sump paled in comparison to managing the logistics of safe exploration. Team one, consisting of Williams, Vinzant, and Wenner was to recon the conditions of the original dive lines, vintage 1984 and 1999. If the lines were buried in two feet of mud during the previous dive in 1999, then they’d surely need evacuation on this dive upstream. Knowing that there were two lines in place dealt the team a daunting proposition in the determination of which line would be the correct one to take. Another objective would be to check the conditions at sump two, while re-porting that to dive team two, as they were staged to dive the following morning. Last, but not least, would be to ascend the mud bank de-noted on the maps provided by Canadian caver Doug Hayes and to continue the search for leads up Swicegood Avenue. These were enough pro-jects for one night.
Dive team two, consisting of Jill Heinerth and Jerry Murphy, was to enter the water once dive team one returned to the surface and re-ported their findings, then dive sump one on their lead and continue to drag four large side-mount tanks to sump two, to continue where Ron Simmons left off. As Ron Simmons had passed away only months earlier, it is easy to imagine the mental attitude of the team. They used his dive bag to transport gear that day, thanks to good friend Barbara AmEnde. Years later, this is still a bit overwhelming for Mark Wenner.
The 2013 CRF Labor Day expedition was the target date for the next round of attempts on the sumps. Divers included Mark Wenner, Brian Williams, and Matt Vinzant, with the addition of veteran rebreather diver Mike Young.
Divers and support entered the Weller Entrance of Roppel Cave on August 30th to deliver all tanks (nine – including a “side mount” rebreather) to the floor of the cave, and most of the personal dive gear bags – (ten) to the sump, 19 bags in total. This was done through the North Downey Entrance (new Weller Entrance) and involved descending a series of 20-foot ladder sections, approximately 135 feet, and traversing a list of restrictive squeezes and crawls. This was their chance to recon the water level of the Logsdon River and review dive conditions in general for the next day’s dive. Low water tables produced five to ten feet of visibility, which is rare (for the first diver). They were in and out of the cave in four hours, which is an amazingly short time frame. Pat Kambesis had a nice dinner waiting for everyone at Hamilton Valley, and it was time for most of the team who had traveled far, to catch up on sleep. Slowly, the CRF cavers started to wander in and assemble, and Mark proceeded to hit up everyone he knew for help with the next day’s tank haul. You can imagine the response. Roaring River objectives seemed to be getting all the attention, which surprised their party, and they worried about how they’d manage the gear to the sump in the morning.
On August 31st they entered the cave with enough support to transport all remaining gear and tank bags. Two of the tanks were carbon fiber, and not stored in travel bag protection which was a worry to team members. Naturally the divers had some of the load, which is not the best of worlds in conservation of vital energies. They reached the sump for the second time at 3 PM, and out of the water on the “other side” at 4 PM.
New, knotted J2 dive line (a strong blend of Dacron) was expertly run by Matt Vinzant, being followed by Brian Williams 15 minutes later with survey tools to re-survey this underwater section with a fresh line tied off to four silt screws they had left in the cave in 2007. Mark Wenner followed Brian, counting the dive line knots tied in ten foot increments (70 knots, or 700 feet) and Mike Young followed with two large bags of gear, using his Side Kick rebreather. Mike then repeated his efforts and returned through the sump to grab the two remaining gear bags. The dive went perfectly, and they were successful in re-lining and re-mapping the sump.
Except for Mike in his wet suit and cave suit, the team wore dry suits, with all bringing a second dry cave suit and insulation in dry bags to ease the long night they’d have climbing and surveying the pit and dome “leads” from 2007. Once on the other side of the sump and suited up, they split into two teams, one to work Simmons Pit and the other to start the dome climb.
See the Article
See the full article, The Call of the South Toohey Ridge by Mark Wenner and Pat Kambesis in Cave Research Foundation’s Quarterly Newsletter May 2014 (Vol 42, No 2).