Spelunking at Pop's Cave

The Outdoor Adventure Club from Logan traveled to Pop's Cave (Bosstown, WI)to do some spelunking. Gabe and I went along also to do some exploring.

In case you are not familiar with the term, "Spelunking" is the touristic visitation of wild caves and "caving" is the exploration of natural caverns in the earth. Our group may have been tourists, but we had a great time exploring the cave.

It was a nice hike up to the cave as we had to park over a mile away. The weather was beautiful even though we spent 2 hours underground without seeing the sunshine. We all had headlamps and helmets. Most of the kids brought a change of cloths as it was wet and muddy.

You don't realize the depth of darkness until you turn off your light in a cave. Your eyes never adjust because no additional light is coming in.

We all enjoyed the experience and Gabe and I will look to come back sometime with a few of his friends. On the right is Gabe and I at the mouth of the cave. On the left, is Gabe in the cave. Everything appears light because the flash illuminates the subject.

Family Climb

We have what is becoming a yearly outing for our family to go climbing at Devils Lake. My sister Lori, Jimmy (future brother-in-law), Paul, Beth and Gabe all attended. We tried to talk our 74 year old mother into climbing, but she insisted on taking care of our dog. There was probably more laughing and conversation than climbing going on, but everyone did at least one climb.

Jimmy (The Rookie Mountaineer) did a very nice job his first time climbing. I set the Grotto which is a nice chimney climb and he almost made it to the top on his first try. Paul, Lori and Beth had all climbed last year and commented that it was easier this year because they had some experience and knew what to expect. Lori had a bad knee which she was trying to save for an upcoming marathon. I think she was disappointed in not being able to climb more as she really enjoys it.

We finished up at around 2:00. Paul and I headed up to the top to take down the sets while Gabe led everyone else down to the parking lot. It started to rain and we ended up helping a family with two small children down the CCC trail as the rocks were getting slippery and the parents had their hands full.

After climbing we went to Hooties to have some food and beverages.

Pictured on the left is Lori and Jimmy. On the right is Gabe.

End of Summer Day at DL

Gabe wanted to bring his friend Tristan rock climbing before the summer ended. Tristan has climbed with us before but had never done a rappel. We hiked up the CCC to the Guillotine and set up a releasable rappel on a short route for Tristan. I wanted to give Tristan a progression of rappels at low heights before trying a taller rappel. We then moved up the CCC to Anemia which has a nice belay ledge to do a top managed climb from and set a higher rappel for Tristan and Gabe to rappel and climb. Both Tristan and Gabe did a great job climbing today. They celebrated by jumping in the lake on the South Shore to cool off after we were done.

Pictured on the left are Gabe and Tristan. On the right is Tristan on rappel.

Kayaking

Gabe, Beth and I decided to try out some canoeing and kayaking at Buckhorn State Park today. Buckhorn is only about 1.5 hours from LaCrosse so the drive went quickly. We took a paddle tour to scout out some of the backpacking sites in the park. I think we found a couple of sites that we will camp at sometime in the near future. The water was calm with a light breeze and we took our time to pull up on beaches and check out sites. We had never been in Buckhorn before, but it is a beautiful park.

Later in the day we drove to Necedah to scout out the climbing areas for a trip later this fall. The bugs were thick as we got into the woods below the climbs so we made it a fast scouting trip.

In the photos you see Gabe at the top, then myself on the left and Gabe helping Beth with he boat on the right.

West Bluff Climb

It was a beautiful day so Gabe, Keachen and myself drove out to Devils Lake to do some climbing. Keachen is a teacher at Logan who enjoys many outdoor activities as well as climbing. I originally wanted to climb on the Lost Face but we ended up at Cleo's as I did not want to take a lot of time trying to find the Lost Face. We rappelled in after we set a climb and later moved ropes to another climb near Kings. The day went quickly and before long it was midday and time to hike out. Everyone had a good time. Pictured on the left is Keach belaying Gabe on Kings. On the right is Keach getting set to rappel.

Rocky Mountain National Park

On July 27-31, Gabe, myself and my brother Paul traveled from Cheyenne, WY to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. My brother flew into Cheyenne to meet us and continue on our trip.

We arrived at RMNP at around Noon. It was a nice day so we setup camp in the Moraine Park campground. We wanted to acclimatize a couple of days at 8400 ft. before we went backcountry. We did some short dayhikes in the Bear Lake area up to Emerald Lake.

We went backcountry to Fern Lake entering at the Fern Lake trailhead. It was a modest elevation gain of a little over 1000 ft. Fern Lake was beautiful...when it was not raining. Our campsite had a more restricted view that I would have liked. It was surrounded by White Pines and Firs so much so that we could not see the lake or anything except the top of the mountains. I much prefer a site that offers a clear view of a lake or mountains. The plus side was the sites were very spread out and secluded.

We tried out our new steri pen and it seemed to work well for water purification (we will know how well it worked in about a week). We spent quite a bit of time dodging into the tent avoiding the rain, but we had nice weather for our hike out.

All-in-all it was a nice trip but I think after spending 3 summer trips to the Rocky's we are ready for some new territory next summer.

The photo on the left is Gabe and Paul in the tent during a rain storm and the photo on the right is of Fern Lake and surrounding mountains.

Devils Tower

On July 26-27, we spent some time climbing and learning multipitch routes on Devils Tower. It was a great experience as most of the climbing we do is top roped and single pitch. We met Frank Sanders who has made over 50 first ascents on the Tower since the 1970's. Seth Zaharias (our guide) and was very professional, safe and knowledgeable.

The Native Americans believe the Tower has a spiritual quality and we would commonly see prayer flags as we hiked to the start of our climbs.At the end of the day, as we walked out with our climbing gear, the tourists hiking along the base would ask, "What is climbing on the Tower like?" Or... "Did you make it to the top?"

The easiest route up is 5.7, so there are no easy ways to the top. The climbing is different in the sense we had to learn proper hand jam technique. The rock is very abrasive when compared to the quartzite at Devils Lake that we were used to. Next time we climb, we will wear pants instead of shorts. We worked on our multi pitch technique, hand jams, double rope rappels, anchors and rescue pulley systems.

Pictured on the left is Gabe on the Durrance route. Pictured on the right, Gabe and I on the Leaning Column (I had read about the Leaning Column moving. We can both state factually that it does move slightly when you climb up it.)