JENOLAN CAVES – SEPTEMBER 2015
This weekend, Rod took five beginners plus Cat O and me through Jenolan’s Aladdin Cave and Mammoth Squeeze, two short trips. Both caves had some challenges that tested our upper body strength and ability to squeeze through small places (I failed both tests!).
There were a few short climb downs to get into Aladdin, but once at the intermediate level, the chamber offers you the choice of three small tunnels, some with decorations. In the “old days”, Aladdin was used as a tourist cave. Now it’s got a locked gate across it. However, there is evidence of its days as a tourist cave, in the main chamber there are chicken wire enclosures to make sure people don’t break the fine straw formations off the ceiling.
After looking at the formations, Rod thought we’d go down a slot that he hadn’t been down before, it was vertical and we needed a hand line to get both up and down. With no way to tie off the hand-line, Rod made himself into a “meat anchor” by tying the webbing around himself, he’s pretty big so there was no way we could pull him down through the slot.
Cat was first down the slot to make sure all was ok for the beginners following her. I was to be the last one down. I looked at the walls of the slot and said to Rob, “I don’t think I’ll be able to get back up.” He said don’t worry about it, so down I went, then stressed for the next 15 minutes about how I’d get back out.
After I went down, Rod thought he’d give it a go, but he was never going to make it (at least that was our opinion), so then he had to get back out which proved more difficult. It took quite a while for him to extricate himself (a testament to his good upper body strength), we were beginning to wonder if we might have to crawl up and over him to get ourselves out!
Then it was everyone’s turn to climb up and out. Every one went up and then it was my turn, I got myself up the first big step up, but then there was no traction for my volleys, just couldn’t get a foot hold to get any higher and the rim of the slot was still about 50cm above my head. I inched my way up, then decided to tie an alpine butterfly to give me more of a hand-hold on the webbing and maybe even get my foot into it. Let me tell you, tying an Alpine Butterfly with your hands off to the side because it’s too narrow for them to be in front of you, is almost impossible. The Alpine Butterflies didn’t help much, and it meant that I was tugging a lot on the webbing. Eventually poor Rod basically pulled me up, and after what seemed like an eternity, my head and shoulders were above the rim. I had to rest there for 5 minutes to get my breathing back under control. What’s a woman my age doing this sort of thing for, am I crazy? Finally out of the slot (I had no strength in my arms and shoulders left), all I could do was lay on the rim of the slot for 5 minutes to gather my strength!
After we’d seen all there was to be seen, we retreated out of the cave and back to the Caver’s Hut for the night and to get ourselves ready for the next day’s caving.
We walked down the valley to Mammoth fairly early in the morning. Mammoth has a tricky climb down for the vertically challenged like me and the kids, but once past that, it’s smooth sailing.
Our second challenge for this weekend was the Keyhole Squeeze, this is a section of tunnel where there is really only room for your body (the keyhole), plus there’s a section that makes a 90 degree turn. You have to have relatively short long bones in your legs to be able to do this, so being short, it was going to be ok for me. I went in first because someone relatively experienced had to be at the end when the kids went through, Rod wasn’t going to do this tunnel. So, I went in for about 10m and found it too squeezy, maybe I wasn’t doing it right, but sliding on my belly using my elbows to propel myself along wasn’t easy. I turned around and came back, which in itself was an amazing feat, as far as I know, no-one else has been able to actually turn around and retreat, anyone else who gives up, basically backs themselves out!. Anyway, Catherine and the 2 little kids made it through to the end and returned, maybe if I had someone at the end giving me encouragement, I might have been able to do it, I didn’t freak out, but just wasn’t happy in there, or continuing forward without knowing how much further I had to go.
And so ended another great weekend at Jenolan!