This is a personal story about a road-trip I made last weekend from Arcola, Texas to Driftwood, Texas for the purposes of helping dig in a makeshift mining operation called, "The Kiwi Sink Dig."
Background:
____________
Back in the late 80's and 90's, I went on numerous road-trips to the town of Candela, Mexico to visit
a well-known cave called, "Las Grutas de Carrizal." It occurred to me that my only chance of finding
unexplored passage in this cave was to try to explore tiny holes in the ceiling which where high above and
out of reach. So sometime around 1995, I purchased the biggest ladder I could get my hands on. It was
a heavy-duty aluminum extension ladder with two 20 foot sections. I loaded the ladder on the roof of my
4x4 Toyota speleo-camper and my caving friend David Williams accompanied me to the cave where we
met with at least 2 other cavers. We spent the day in the cave, looking for the best place to set up the ladder, After caving all day, my buddies became tired and mutinied on me and refused to help me haul
the heavy ladder into the cave. They seem to all agree that any leads high above were just shadows. My
beloved ladder was never even untied from the truck and all the effort to get it thru Mexican customs and
back thru U.S. Customs was a waste of my time and money.
A few months later, I finally put the ladder to use during a bout of unemployment by installing Christmas
lights on 2-story houses. I can't remember if I ever used the ladder again, although there were some
attempts to use it.
Over the years, I tried to tell cavers the story of my beloved ladder and how I would like to find a home for it. But there were no takers.
Last year, I was following the news reports of the ongoing progress in a new cave dig called Kiwi Sink, and
it appeared they needed a better ladder, but not one like mine. But in the past month, the depth of their dig finally warranted a new ladder, and I offered to donate mine, and the offer was accepted.
So on Saturday night, May 4th, I loaded my giant ladder onto the roof of my golf-cart-sized-car, a Honda Fit. My neighbors looked at me with lots of suspicion. Even the local sheriff deputy slowed down and
looked at me suspiciously. Fortunately, he did not see my expired inspection sticker. My plan was to drive in the middle of the night and to use the back-roads from Arcola to Sealy to Lockhart and thru Kyle to the cave dig. I drove to Rosenberg at 30 mph, and then Sealy at 40 mph. I wasn't sure when I left if I would even get that far, but the car seem to have no problem with the load so I jumped on I-10 to see what would happen. There was no traffic, so I stepped on the gas and was going 45 mph with the blinkers on.
I got to Flatonia about 2:30 in the morning and there was no traffic. I took a break, and then decided to see what would happen if I drove as fast as possible. I was able to finally hit a top speed of about 60 mph, but since there was no hurry, I dropped back down to 50 something. I eventually reached the location of the dig, but only knew where it was within a few hundred feet. So I pulled off the road about 4:30 and rolled out a pad on the ground and went to sleep under a star-filled sky.
Around 9:30, Dr. Andy Gluesencamp woke me up and took me to his house for breakfast. I only knew him by face and name, so it was really nice of him and his wife to offer the hospitality. We drove a hundred yards away to the dig, and found the Chief Digger there, Gil Edigar. He was geared up and ready for a hard day of digging, as was another caver, Galen Falgout. Me on the other hand, needed some more sleep, and I hadn't come prepared to dig. I am addicted to Dr. Pepper in the mornings, and I didn't have any, but the digging needed to commence. I had seen photos of the dig, so I had an idea what to expect. But when I got down there, Gil was doing all the digging, and I think Andy or Galen was putting it in a bucket and I was needed to transport the bucket a few feet over to the larger drum. I was at first shocked thinking we are not going to get much digging done at this rate. But soon more diggers showed up, Eric Flynt, Charlie Savvas and John Schneider. They began digging like hard-core pro-miners, and the rock and dirt broke up with just a slight amount of hammering. Terry Raines showed up and then him and Gil and Galen, got the truck-mounted crane ( ? ) going and started hauling the drums out of the pit. The drums were totally full of rock and dirt and were overhead about 32 feet, when the truck would shift into 1st gear. That was somewhat sporting to the cavers below, but especially to the winch-operator in the back of the truck.
I was mostly just piddling around in the dirt with a small gardener's pick-axe, but I was trying to observe the
operation to see what I needed to learn in order to be efficient. Suddenly 2 or 3 people left the dig to go attend to a rumored brush-fire. This seemed like a good opportunity for me to go to the nearest store and
stock up on food and beverage. Unfortunately, I was gone nearly and hour, but I came back fully refreshed and ready to dig.
John, Charlie, and Eric started moving very large rocks, and they were being hoisted out at an efficient rate.
I have known John by face and name for 24 years, but had never really known him. I was very impressed with his dedication to The Kiwi Sink Dig. By 4 p.m., the cave floor looked a little deeper, and a 20 foot section of my beloved ladder was finally entered into a cave after a 18 year wait. This gave me a warm-fuzzy feeling. It was just the right height, and it is easy to see that after the next dig, the other extension may need to be added to the ladder for the June or July digs. All in all, I bet at least 14 drums of rock and dirt were dumped outside of the cave area, and at least 3 rocks bigger than a large microwave oven.
I think other cavers may have dropped by or even helped in some way. I am sure I am leaving out important details.
Don Cooper dropped by to test his remote-controlled helicopter in the sinkhole & pit. I will let him tell the results of that experiment.
Everybody needed to leave, but I still had some digging left in me. So I took a break and then continued
till it seemed like I was no longer making efficient progress. Hotel Gluesencamp let me take a long hot
shower. Thanks again.
The long drive home was boring driving all alone. After getting some rest I posted a few short comments
on CaveTex about my experience.
Since returning home and back to my hum-drum life here in southeast Texas, all I could do was ponder the idea of when I would return to The Kiwi Sink Dig.
