Fun day spent with Ernie hiking and caving at the Rockpile. I say this often, but I am really rather blessed. I picked up the hobby of caving and happen to live very close (1-2 hours) from dozens of caves that I can easily access and explore.
Here is the report I’ve written for the Mother Lode Grotto that will appear in their publication The Valley Caver.
Just a Two Bit Pit
Ernie and I met up at the usual location, Star Bucks in Angels Camp, and discussed the day’s plans. He’d emailed the MLG listserv asking if others wanted to go with him to Dragon’s Breath at the Rockpile. I’m always game to cave with Ernie and appreciate his mentoring as I learn more. I expressed to him how I’d heard at the MLG’s 60th from Don Raan that the entrance was a bit tough, and I was still somewhat new to being on rope. I recounted that in August after a bit of practice at Rippled, I was much more confident and had done well at the three ascents at Take it for Granite. In discussing further, Ernie learned that I’d not been to the Rockpile at all, and wisely decided to have me try the more junior locations, and we’d save Dragon’s Breath for another day. I always want to push myself, but I also have no problem adding more caves and locations on my “to do” list for another trip; it’s nice to have something to look forward to.
Ernie and I parked at the Natural Bridges trailhead. We walked back up toward the entrance to the self-serve pay box and found it was completely open and no envelopes; no payment for the season? Nope! There is a new digital payment system next to the restroom. It requires debit or credit card, and after some slow-speed processing, it prints out a time-stamped receipt good for the rest of the day (don’t forget to put it face up on your vehicle’s dash). Today the cost was $8, as expected, but instead I tucked my exact change back into my wallet. The digital self-serve parking receipt listed “Glory Hole” at the top, by mistake, or is it also valid at the New Melones Glory Hole Rec Area, a popular bicycling location?Either way, we gathered our gear and hiked down the normal path to Natural Bridges
We set up tensionless rigging around a healthy-looking tree with three loops and then with slack, a figure eight connected with a ‘biner to the line heading toward the descent. Then Ernie threw the rope up and over the arm of a dead tree just to keep it off the ground and rocks a little bit. We rigged up a rope pad. Ernie readied his lighter for easy access to check for “bad air” and then he descended with many sounds of scuffles as he navigated through the entrance before the drop off. When he had finished he called “off rope” from far below and whistled twice. I called out “on rope” and began to rig up my micro rack to head down. Ernie had warned me about the right way to test: sit back and pull when not over the dangerous pit, as obviously that would be a very bad place to find out something was done incorrectly Instead, I climbed just above to a large flat rock beyond the pit, tied off my micro rack and leaned back back make sure that my rigging was correct before descending. Everything checked out all good and I headed back to the rope pad to tidy things up before heading down.
The Two Bit Pit entrance is narrow and it is best if you do not have a large pack, or if you have a pack that you can easily switch from your back to the side to your front or wherever allow you to navigate the initial entrance. I keep my handheld flashlight, spare headlamp, lighter, and batteries in a belt bag that I can easily rotate around my waist from its usual spot on my right, to my back, or even just unclip the belt and drag behind me. In this case I just had to rotate it a few times to get past the obstacles. There is a 10 or 15 foot section before the first slight ledge, a short drop, and then one last ledge before a straight drop down. The wall of rock in front of me was close enough to kick or to keep myself from spinning. When I reached the bottom, or would appear to be the bottom, Ernie said I should continue on past him so I could say I had made it to the very bottom off to the left. Another 10 or so feet below I did reach the very muddy bottom. There was a plastic ice cream bucket here, nearly filled to the brim with water; I’m not sure the purpose, but I left it be.
At first I thought I might just free climb back up to Ernie with just my hand ascender for safety, but decided against that idea and attached my chest crawl, tossed a foot in a loop, and climbed up. Back to the right was the log book with only a handful of entries (3?) from 2022, with the most recent being in March. By this time Ernie was back on rope and frogging on up while I snapped a coupled pictures, and zip-zip and away and out of sight. Again, he called out “off rope” and whistled twice, and I called “on rope” before grabbing to rope to attach my equipment. At this length the rope was very, very stretchy and I used my hand on the bottom just to pull as much of it through until it was taking my weight on my hand ascender. I then began to tighten up my chest crawl with Aventure Verticale’s red line zigging back and forth until it runs out and have it close as I can possible get it. Then trying to get my harness leg straps up as high as I can get them, but not fully succeeding as much as I would have liked to, as I found out as I was ascending, I began to ascend using my left-headed Petzl ascender.
When climbing I kept reminding myself to try to use my arms less and work mostly with my legs, remembering what Ernie had said earlier to keep my toes pointed downward to assist in keeping my feet below me as I frogged. This wasn’t always easy as to side of the pit was within a short distance, so when not frogging I needed to keep them mostly pointed towards the rock just so I wouldn’t spin around and grind on the rock.
Unfortunately I have put on a little bit of weight since this last summer adventures and have not been practicing climbing and definitely struggled getting back up to the top of Two Bit Pit. When I finally got up to the tighter part I was very much out of breath and struggled to make it out. I just kept at it diligently, small progressions at a time. Once past the first ledge I was then grabbing what rocks I could, pushing a little bit more here and there. One problem I ran into with my freed right leg was that I just couldn’t pull it up too far as I’d normally be able to without it threatening to cramp on me, so I just put it back into the double foot loop where it’d be more useful. Once past the lower section or contact, I then turned about 90° to the left to face the second rock ledge and work my way so that I could push back, get my hand ascender up and past the ledge and then keep on keeping on pushing and inching my way up. When I was past the final ledge but still within the shadow of the pit, I decided to sit and rest a bit (knowing no one else was waiting below) as I assumed it was going to be fairly warm on top. By the time I came back into full sunlight, I found out I was mistaken, and it was nice and cool with a steady breeze that was very welcome at the top of the pit.
After I downed some water and Ernie pulled up the rope I decided that was probably going to be the last pit that I was going to go down for the day. I was still feeling a little jittery and a little tired and didn’t want to push it, as much as I wanted to go into some more caves. I pulled out some snacks and continue to re-hydrate, packed up my climbing gear. I’m so glad I didn’t wear my coveralls into the pit – I’d have been burning up! I find that I feel very hot when I’m caving and actively moving.
Before I was fully rested, Ernie and I continued on hiking around the Rockpile. I find it funny, but to me, a light hike in a mostly level area is just as restful, if not more, than just sitting around We hiked up to Dragon’s Breath, which I hope to return to in a couple trips and see how far Ernie, myself, and some other smaller cavers might see how far we can push; hoping for a “good air” day. We then headed back down and stopped at Haunted Chasm. Here Ernie threw on his coveralls and helmet as he wanted to pop down to verify if a left-behind rope was still there, and indeed it was. He brought his lighter to verify that there was no “bad air”, which was the cause of the abandoned rope. We then continue to hike around the Rockpile and see the other better locations, such as Music Hall, Carlow’s, Lenda’s, Sh!t Pit, and Keith’s Chasm. I saw a number of possible entrances to caves, and I’m sure folks have popped down and found that they either don’t go very far, or just aren’t as good as many of the others.
All-in-all, I had a great time hiking. It was a wonderful day with great weather in the low 70’s and I just love being out in God’s country with only the occasional sound of a car driving by, plenty of birds, wildlife signs, a very nice breeze and just a great time out there with Ernie.