Fox River

Fox River Cave

I felt sorry for my brother who, after months of trying to organise a weekend tramp with me and finally finding mutually convenient time/weather/etc., I then ditched in favour of tottling off to Fox River with Neil. Still, I had been waiting to tackle this trip with Neil for just about as long and it had been over 2 months since I’d really been underground.

Nervously Neil and I watched the weather, and as the time neared chose to delay the trip by a day in order to optimise the water levels for the paddle in.

Caver Neil at Fox River Entrance

Retrieving an erstwhile tube

Retrieving an erstwhile Neil

 

          I had been clever enough to pack lots of warm dry tops in a dry bag to wear whilst we bolted the climb but I neglected to bring a second dry bag for my cave overalls. So of course they got soaked.  This meant either climbing into a wet cave-suit after the streamway or staying in a wet wetsuit on the lower half. I had packed a down jacket for extra warmth, but deciding when to wear it involved trying to foretell when I would be moving about and when I’d hanging round in one spot for a spell. Then I could heave my down jacket off and on to variously keep sufficiently warm when stationary and also not tear it to shreds when stumbling about. Well of course I failed in that attempt and consequently left an embarrassingly large number of downy snowflakes along the inner depths of Fox.

 

Feet first caving

 

Cave spa

          For a couple of likely West Coast lads such as us, I thought we did rather well to remember to note the time we left the carpark and then the time when we reached the climb project. We were then able to calculate how long we had taken to get in (Neil loaned me his toes for counting past 20) and therefore (all things being equal if not tilted slightly in our favour) how long we could afford to spend on the climb project before needing to turn around, high-tail it back out and avoid the alarm being triggered. As you can tell by the lead-in to this paragraph we still managed to be late out, and yes the alarm was triggered and yes CaveSAR were alerted…

          The bolt-climb itself was perhaps not spectacular but was nevertheless nail-biting in its own way for a few moments. It was on a solid block of calcite, which was not really slippery but consisted entirely of surfaces that were all nicely rounded and sloping downwards in a manner which suggested a latent desire to shed any intruders off and over the edge and hence into 10-12m of nothingness below. Neil however clung on like the proverbial sh*t to the blanket and doggedly pushed against the drill sufficiently to make a hole without simultaneously thrusting himself off narrow ledge upon which he was tenuously perched.

          The climb led to a calcite glacier above which was a delicately decorated grotto, part of which was drafting nicely but will/would involve a large amount of speleothemic destruction in order to follow it any further.

          I managed to commit not only a shameful rigging/SRT faux pas on the way out but also one that in hindsight could very easily been my last mistake ever. A single new bolt had been installed at the top of a 40m drop into the approximate centre of the earth. The new bolt was on the edge of wall that had a rather tricky lead-in which involved climbing out over the edge of a limestone ‘fin’ whilst simultaneously lowering oneself down and across onto the bolt/hanger. Added to this, the new bolt had been installed within a carabiner-length of a protruding rusty old spike situated just below it and slightly to the ‘on’ side. Such that as I swung over the edge of the limestone fin, onto the solitary non-locking ‘bail-biner’ that we were using, it snagged on the rusty old spike thus holding the biner up at an awkward 45°-ish angle. Dangling from my rack as I was, I was now too far down over the edge to try and climb back up onto the narrow fin-edge I had just left. With the gate facing down and no lock, I knew this wasn’t a world-class rigging set-up. However at the tail end of a 12-hour energy-sapping day I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of the moment. Neil hollered at me, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying over the roar of the nearby waterfall and I couldn’t see him as he was directly behind me and tucked inside a smallish alcove. Thus, and rather foolishly, I heaved back against the wall and tried to lift the biner off the snag. Happily, a) I had enough oomph to lift up and out sufficiently, b) the snag released, c) the bail-biner gate didn’t open, d) the biner didn’t fail. Neil whooped loudly and clapped a few times, whereupon it began to dawn on me that I had perhaps just had rather a close shave. Why I didn’t think to attach my cows-tail I don’t know, more-over I wonder if I had thought to, whether I would have only thought to attach it to the biner itself which wouldn’t have helped anyway.

 

Cave halo

Leap of Faith

          The walk out was treacherous and tedious. As the track is not much used now, the surface has become very mossy. With an over-weight, water-laden pack, in the dark and already more than a little pooped, progress was painfully slow. Neil was faster and more nimble and went on ahead, adding to my difficulties when I manage to lose the over-grown trail altogether, and adding to his difficulties as I had his car keys.

So apart from the slight panic to get back into cell phone coverage and let our contact person know as soon as possible that we were ok, a great day out finished well.

          P.S. the so-called ‘rock fall’ danger above the entrance to Fox River is completely laughable. It is about the size of a dining room table, consists entirely of calcite and there is no evidence that it has so much as twitched since the Kaikoura earthquake. It is hard not to conclude that budgetary constraints comprise the bulk of the reason behind DoC’s decision to ‘close’ the Fox River cave.

Here's the link to the 'Leap of Faith' clip which Googles Blogger programming doesn't support...   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FppxwBzOG3Q