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Early Indiana Caving ChroniclesBy Joe Oliphant

A long time ago … far, far away from Turkey … there’s a sinkhole-plane river cave in Indiana that goes and goes and goes and goes and goes … and no one has ever gotten to the end.

It is June 2008 and I write these vintage Indiana caving chronicles from a very old place, Turkey.

Turkey is rich in culture, religions, and blood baths. Kurds, Christians, Ottomans, Mongols, Romans, Byzantines, and Muslims all have driven stake here. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and the Crusaders. All bloody martyrs that thread, stitch, and stain a complicated weave of history, culture, and civilizations.

Today, Turkey’s far east neighbors, Iran and Iraq, are havens for the so-called terrorists and some obsessive explorers still search for the elusive Noah’s Ark near Mt. Ararat. In striking contrast, some of these same areas have super deep unexplored alpine karst. The military presence and the violence stifles modern day cave exploration. This place is exotic and holy.

In a few weeks I’ll travel to center of this great country to an area far removed from the violence. My comrades, from Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Turkey, have all been exploring Turkey’s for the last eight years, Call of the Abyss project, Ala Daglar. Ala Daglar is a magnificent massif and an important geological link. To the east, it’s the continuation to the great Himalaya Mountains and to the west it connects up with Europe’s Alps. Ala Daglar is also home to the deepest hydrological cave in the world.

I am the oldest on this alpine karst expedition and my mental state has fallen below my standard and comfort level. On the eve of this expedition my emotions and anxiety are running ultra high and I pause a moment to reflect.

I turn back the clock and dial in a time not quite forgotten and yet not so easily remembered.

1979–1984 b.d (before Dible) aka The Dark Times

My caving days begin in the fall of 1979. I am a freshman at Purdue University and some of my first weekend’s home are spent exploring Monroe County. My first cave trip is to Coons Cave with Rick Cadwell and Kent Wilson. Kent has a diving buddy and they seek our help hauling oxygen tanks to the back of the cave. The cave was awesome.

I used to have a picture of all of us after this cave trip and the look on my face was euphoric. I looked drugged. I was hooked. In a split second caving becomes my life-long obsession and passion. On the same trip I buy a caving book at the local hardware store about the caves of Garrison Chapel Valley. I take the book back to Purdue and read it countless times.

The book’s center of the universe revolves around Buckner Cave. To get to Buckner Cave you must pass the Barn and before you get to the barn you must pass the gate-keeper, Dick Blenz.

Blenz, a college professor, is intrinsic to the area and yet eccentric and curious individual. Every time I walk into Blenz’s house I get eerie vibes. The place seems empty of character. What it lacks in furniture it gains in atmosphere, a slap in the face of strong cat piss.

Walk down the basement stairs and the stench intensifies with cat shit. I don’t recall ever seeing the litter box. The toxic waste gags my stomach and burns my eyes. As my senses recover the basement archives open up to many life-times of exploration, the NSS cave files. I spent hours and hours going over those cave files.

Blenz, a great story teller, clears his voice to the point of getting on your nerves. Blenz isn’t caving much in 1980 and he spent much of his early heydays exploring Sullivan Cave. Back then he did long multi-day camps and the results were published in some book I don’t remember the name of. But during these hours of storytelling one topic captures my attention.

It is Blenz’s special list of caves that I fixate. I needed to find more information. Blenz tells me the caves on this list and then asks me, “Do you want to become a caver?” Like a kid in a candy store, I yell, “Hell yeah!” Blenz proclaims, “Then what you need to do is explore all of the caves on this list and then once you have done that you will truly become a caver.” Sounded a lot like Star Wars and learning about the force. Blenz is like Yoda and calls out “the karst, learn about the karst.”

Like Skywalker, I ask, “how do I find about these caves, who knows where they are?” Blenz doesn’t hesitate, he says “get a hold of Randy Jackson. Randy is the expert, especially when it comes to Saltpeter and Reeves Caves.” So the karst time trials begin. For the next four years I work these caves into my repertoire over and over. At

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first going with Randy and then later leading trips with Ron Adams and Rick Cadwell.

As I check off caves on Blenz’s list close calls become the standard. Most of these situations involve poor judgment, sometimes alcohol, and a few times they lead to sheer horror. I don’t belong to a grotto and I train myself by reading books and then going out and doing it live. I am an accident waiting to happen and a suicide time bomb of sorts.

In 1981, the worst horror of these close calls takes place in Sullivan Cave. We are Beyond the Beyond. Our crew: seven whiskey drinking, ex-high-school wrestlers. We all had larger than life egos and super high testosterone levels. We are indestructible and built for caving. The youngest in our group, is a 15-year-old farm boy named Bruce.

During our exploration we reach a point just over 3 miles from the entrance. I am driving the pace of this peloton with focus on the prize, the emergence of the Sullivan River. Suddenly, Bruce slides down a mud bank and goes totally underwater for short time. Half an hour later he is, unbeknownst to us, entering the classic stages of hypothermia. He is at first like a dead man walking and then goes unconscious. Oh oh!

Using crude self-rescue techniques we begin the long trip back out. We try many times to slap Bruce and wake his ass up. We don’t know better. We float and drag Bruce through the bathtubs and once we leave the physics of the water behind we hit the wall, sheer exhaustion. A dark reality sets in the first time we move him into the dry passages. We can only move him short distances and then full collapse follows. Wrestlers are endurance athletes by nature and so like six pall bearers we repeat this tedious and awful task over and over using crude wool blankets as a stretcher.

We drag him over rocks and jagged floors of the backbreaker passage. Bruce’s body has become completely rigid at this point and the only time we see movement is when he would move his hands near his crouch and piss his pants.

You know it’s bad when someone pisses their pants and no one laughs. We reach the entrance at 2:00 a.m. Fortunately, I had gone out hours before we reached the entrance to wake up the owner so he could call an ambulance and have it waiting for us. We are greeted with zero temperatures and one large bad-ass looking cop.

The cop kept asking us the same questions over and over. He particularly wanted to know how old Bruce was. I took the lead with the cop to help ensure our stories stayed straight. My answers

are vague and drifting off subject. The cop is now circling to see what’s inside our vehicle. We don’t dare open the vehicle because it is loaded with empty beer cans and whiskey bottles. Lucky for us it was so cold that the windows were iced over on the inside and you could not see in nor scrape the ice off.

The cave and intense rescue situation had given us some super insulation abilities so we wait it out. Like a Mexican standoff we all are pacing around and waiting. Finally, the cop gives up and leaves. Thank god he did not search our vehicle. We figured the cop must have decided the cave had kicked the shit out us so no need to do further damage by arresting us. Now the rest of the story:

Turns out, Bruce’s core body temperature had dropped to almost the point of no return, 86–88 degrees. It takes the hospital nearly three days to bring his core temperature back to normal. The hospital nurse tells me he nearly died.

Four of the seven wrestlers took the accident to heart and never went caving again. For me it was another great adventure and I kept caving. We later found out Bruce had some internal thermostat problem. Prior to the cave trip he had gotten overheated bailing hay and his internal thermostat never cooled him off so he was taken to the hospital. The hypothermia situation was the yang to the yin of his earlier situation.

I survived my first three years of caving by using drugs, sex, rock and roll music, and luck and now was ready to advance my skills to vertical caving.

It’s 1984 and this is the beginning of my second 12 year cycle. According to Chinese astrology. I was born in 1960, the Year of the Rat, and 1984 changes the course of my life.

Having just graduated from college I am in debt over my head and totally confused on what I want to do with my life. So, I take a dangerous job climbing microwave towers. Climbing towers pays well and it is pure adrenaline, but also a damn dangerous job. Most towers are located on mountains and in remote areas of the country. The company I work for services them in all 50 states and so I want to travel and live dangerously. The tower work helps get me out of Indiana so I can cave in other more powerful and much deeper caves. In 1984 multi-drop caves dominated the scene and were all the rave in the NSS News.

October 25, 1984, I reach my crossroads. Having just joined the NSS it’s my birthday and the time is right to finally go caving with Danny Dible. I knew very little about Dible and his dedicated followers other then he finds lots of virgin cave.

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Reading scarce newsletters or articles about Danny is difficult because most of his discoveries are never published. That builds on his folklore and legend. Danny is the Eric Clapton of Indiana caving. He walks on karst waters and is one of the most gifted hard-charging cave explorers of our time.

His discoveries are worthy of the Lew Bicking Award 100 times over if he would only publish. Today Danny still makes outrageous discoveries. His discoveries are what make legends and Danny is truly a legend. This however, is a story that precedes my caving days with Danny. And so my early days of caving are the dark times. These next chronicles follow those dark days and are about the times before or without Dible. This is where Binkleys begins.

Binkleys BeginsBinkleys Cave burst into my life like no other.

Like a gorgeous island siren Binkleys’ exploration draw is seductive. And its sirens led to a spark and the spark lites my torch and my torch caught wind and starts a bonfire of passion of exploration. I have Ron Adams and Gary Roberson to thank for the motivation and inspiration to write these chronicles about Binkleys and surrounding caves.

Binkleys is one of Indiana’s longest caves and few have ever gotten the opportunity to explore it in the more remote areas. It has three entrances and they are all notorious for closure and instability. With over 22 miles of mapped passages and leads in all directions, the cave has excellent virgin cave potential.

Binkleys is a classic sinkhole-plane borehole river cave. Its Mountain Room is more impressive than Wyandotte. You can walk the entire perimeter of this room and gaze up over 100 feet and see the top of the large breakdown chamber. Leading from this symmetrical room is large river passages that have beautiful and yet treacherous pothole floors.

Binkleys exploration history involves a small dedicated group of explorers. Finding the data to unlock some of its secrets was my first task. During my first real treasure hunt I learn the cave data has been compiled by the Indiana Speleological Society (ISS). The ISS, led by high powered cavers like Gary Roberson, Terry Crayden, “Fig” Newton, and John Benton. I find out they are all still around but difficult to find. Its spring 1984 and my plan—find Terry Crayden.

Terry, nicknamed, the Dog, is no longer actively caving. The Dog is a generation behind me and, like Danny, Terry is legendary and notorious for keeping secrets. His discoveries are many and

historic. I track down the Dog and find him in a rural southern Indiana setting.

He is building a log cabin and we strike up a short but important friendship. Twice, the Dog and I talked for hours about caving. We had great discussions on Binkleys Cave and Lewis Lamon.

The Dog tells me that every large borehole passage in Binkleys has good potential for long distance discoveries. But these boreholes always start and end in breakdown and so if one does not value their life then they might push into virgin cave. The Dog qualifies the risk telling me that squeezing and sifting through St. Louis Limestone is a risky and gutsy endeavor. Those who have taken the risk have had many a close call.

I had no experience with this St.Louis Limestone so I was curious to hear more. He finished out by summarizing, if you don’t value your life very much then take the gamble and push the breakdown. The reward will be thousands of feet or maybe even miles of virgin cave. The reality is also death by crushed breakdown. I am young, ignorant, and game.

The Dog no longer has his maps and cave files. Either they’re lost or his wife has thrown them away. I push for more information and on my last visit he suggests I contact the Corydon Library. “The library?” I said. This seems too easy and logical. He said caves are kept secret but the Corydon library is an important place for historical exploration and that is the ultimate repository. In the report, is the information you are looking for … the answers to all of my questions. So I wrote the library and they responded by giving me a cost estimate for copying the report.

The report, thick with adventure, captivates imagination and taps into my obsessive nature. The map reveals an awesome circle route, complete with pictures, descriptions, and hazards. There is also a regional map showing surrounding caves. In the back of the report, is a lead list—an inventory of sort. Those in particular that capture my interest are Blowing Hole and Dewey Eckart Pit. Both have strong airflow and tremendous potential for virgin cave.

I study the report, enlarge the map, and color code the different passages and levels. I read the report over and over memorizing every detail. This is the Holy Grail and I work hard to store the information into long-term memory. I leave the paper behind and now focus on access.

The Dog once told me that negotiating permission with Harvey Binkley was difficult and unpredictable. One time he will let you in and

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the next time he changes his mind or forgets who you are. It’s August 1984 and I chat with Harvey for the first time. He is decked out in denim blue jean coveralls and flannel shirt. He is a small and animated man.

With fire in his eyes he tells me his cave goes, and goes, and goes, and goes, and no one has ever gotten to the end. He went on to say the cave is dangerous when it rains and I better pick the dead of winter time to go.

He then begins to tell me a tragic story. He relives a moment when a group of cavers from Bloomington got permission and then drank heavily in his cave. They came out at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. they stumbled into the barn that houses 68,000 chickens. Recklessly and shit-faced the drunken cavers ran through the coup yelling and raising hell. The next day Harvey discovers the carnage. A large number of his baby chickens are dead.

He looks closely for my reaction to his story. I assure him I will not mix caving and alcohol. Nor would I go into his chicken house. He looks closely at my eyes as I talk and looks for a waiver or sign. He is measuring and registering my every reaction and word.

We start walking together towards the entrance and I am over taken by the sudden effect it has. There are large trees circling and protecting the entrance. It is located in a large cultivated field and bigger than life. Harvey tells me that years ago this sinkhole was actually a lake. One day the lake disappears and the next day the cave reveals itself.

I was fascinated with the story and I could not take my eye off the entrance. I wonder if the story is legend or truth. As I look past the entrance I catch a glimpse of a nearby road and farmhouse. Ah, a nice back door.

Its Christmas 1984 and Ron Adams and I team up for our first trip to Binkeys. It’s Christmas and kindness and good music is in the air. Ron and I set our goal to do the 4-mile circle route. Along the way we will explore some of the more remote sections of Binkleys. On our energetic, enthusiastic, and ambitious list is Helictite Utopia, Coontown, I-64, Grand Avenue, Fantastic Avenue, BIG Orange Country, the Baelz Entrance, and the 2-mile Hike.

Our clothing is combination of synthetics and wool. It is cheap, crude, and bought from second hand stores and we simply throw them away after each trip. Stylish pants and sweaters kept us warm. Our packs are Army-Navy issue gas mask packs. My knee pads are heavy duty rubber concrete workers style and Ron wears red-colored basketball ones. Our helmets, bright yellow Indianapolis Water

Company standard issue hard hats. They stay on our head with flimsy chin straps. Our lights are diving lights duct taped to our hard hats. We carry a second dive light along with two to five cheap red flashlights as backups. These cheap lights are not waterproof and have a short life and high failure rate. Two candles complete our three sources of light and we plan on routinely stopping to light the candles to feel the karst. Using soccer cleats enables us to move quickly and efficiently through a variety of different water levels. Bandanas and soccer shin pads complete our gladiator approach and we are now ready to explore this classic sinkhole-plane cave.

With a color-coded laminated map in hand we are greeted by unstable rocks and crawls at the entrance. I recall the Binkleys report saying it was normal to a have to find a different route through the breakdown each year. We carefully navigate down this mess of rocks and get to the point where see water coming out from underneath the breakdown. This is the start of the Binkley River. The air is impressive here and the St.Louis Limestone is more unstable than any other rock I had ever seen before.

Once past this nightmare the passage opens up to large walking passage much like some of the places we had explored in Sullivan Cave. Within a few minutes, on the left is a side passage, Lamons

Binkleys Cave, June 22, 2008

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Cutoff. This is connector to the 4-mile Circle Route and many hours from now we hope to emerge from here. We feel good and kept going.

We reach the Mountain Room in an hour and it is here you can really feel the cave change in distance and in complexity. The top of the breakdown mountain has a passage leading off. It is called the Well Casing Passage and we could see an old rope hanging. It was cut. It helps you get into the passage but it is too short to reach and who knows how old it is. We opt out of going for it. Instead we talk about the potential and the first of many leads.

The Mountain Room is over 100 feet tall and you can walk the entire circumference of the breakdown that defines it. The main passage that leads away from here is called Binkleys River Trail. Here, you can walk in the river or climb slightly above. We chose the latter and with bright Ike lights we discover some rare small rare shrimp-like creatures. They are swimming around in the many potholes that are elevated above the main passage. Very cool!

We continue on and after a bit reached the North Y. The colored map is working great. Confirming our location we go straight ahead into Soda-Straw Alley. The orange soda-straws in this area are impressive and one in particular is super thin and about 15 feet long.

We find the best soda straw and our confidence in navigation is soaring. We set our sights on the northern section of the cave, Coontown, Grand

Avenue, and Helictite Utopia. The latter is an absolute must and the name is the hook, line, and sinker that will get us there.

The main passage going north from here is smaller than I expected and not as wide as described in the report. In fact, the farther we went the lower the passage became. Crawling in water and faced with a distinct stench of oil smell we think about how a lighter or carbide lamp could create a nightmare. We reluctantly continue to crawl in this environmental hazard and find Grand Avenue. It has nice formations but is not very long. We push on towards Helictite Utopia.

Making the right-hand turn we finally reach an awesome display of helictites. One distinct formation, called Medusa, is bright brown color and outrageous. It is smaller than I expected but still quite impressive. Beyond this passage is what is called the Pig Wallow and a buzz-stripper. It lives up to its name. We push pass this mud swamp and start trekking in I-64 passage. But due to time restraints, and now being completely soaked in liquid mud, we turn around and head back towards North Y and completing our goal of doing the circle route.

South of the North Y is the continuation of River Trail Passage. The next major landmark we reach is the Crossover and the Shute. It was here that we found our version of Deliverance. At first it looked like the remains of a torso. We looked closer and realized it was sand-filled stocking foot waders.

This section of the cave is complex, has lots of air, and is full of low passages. We went quite some distance down this passage hoping to get to BIG Orange Country and we wanted to take a look at the collapsed Baelz Entrance. The passages were lower and more miserable than North Y/Coontown. After extensive searching we finally found the unimpressive Mortons Marble Hall. Having had enough of low, wet passages we turned our attention and focus to finding Formation Falls and continuing around the circle route.The Grand Avenue borehole.

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Formation Falls is a tear-drop type formation and it has a nice trickle of water coming down from it. We continue on to Fantastic Avenue and the side passage called the 2-mile Hike. The 2-Mile Hike would be the focus of a return trip. We retraced our steps a bit and then started down the Fatigue Way. This is 1 mile of break dancing, wobbling like a drunken style Shaolin Monk. I underestimated the energy it took to do this section of the cave. The rock is also super slippery and some of our falls sounded like we broke our hips we hit so hard.

We also make a couple of wrong turns and by the time we had reached the end of the Fatigue Way I was exhausted. We were now facing a 1,000-foot-long crawl in water. The passage appropriately called the Sewer Pipe looks grim. Ron is tired but I was toasted cheese, I was spent and out of gas.

We discussed options. Option one: turn around and go back out the way we came. If I turned around the breakdown dancing would surely do me in. I had already taken a couple of fairly severe falls on slippery breakdown and the potential for injury would rise significantly if we dared this option. Option two: go forward to the Sewer Pipe. This did not sound good as I was tired and exhausted. I was afraid of falling asleep in the water and drowning. “No way out.” I told Ron.

I recall this statement triggering Ron to get in my face and yell, “What are you going to do die in here man, snap out of it.” As he says this he is snapping his fingers in my face. His words and

gimmicks worked. I snapped out of it.

With new motivation he wakes my ass up and we jettison into the 1,000-foot-long Sewer Pipe. Like muskrats we crawl and sleeze down this nasty-ass tunnel. The following insert is from my dear friend, Ronaldo Adams:

When we were in the sewer tube on that circle route, we were not even sure if we were going the right direction because there were no landmarks since the Fatigue Way,

and after a thousand feet of water crawl we were not sure if we were heading out of or into a death trap. After what seemed like hours in the water crawl, I was in the lead about 100 feet in front of you moving fast to keep from getting cold and wanting

The start of Helictite Utopia. The smoked date on the wall, July 25, 1970, is the date of discovery by the ISS.

Helictite Utopia

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the hell out, you were behind not going as fast wondering if we were even in the right passage, and I came to a small room with the station 140 on the ceiling as marked on the map. When I saw it I triumphantly yelled out “140” at the top of my lungs, we knew were going to live!, that one number said it all. I remember your response being something between laughing and crying. This was probably one of the most intense moments of our caving lives. That’s where we further cultured a type of strength that you cannot get from working out; it’s that inner string that holds you together, that fiber deep within, where the mental and physical meet. It’s something you see at the North Y in Reeves, or Beyond the Beyond in Sullivan, Or coming out Slither Ally in Saltpeter.

Ron’s encouraging words pay off. We cruise to the end and finally reached Lamons Cutoff. We had made the circle. Anytime you overcome an obstacle like this you get some adrenaline factor and thus renewed energy to get the hell out of this cave. We reach Lamons Cutoff on cloud nine and 20 minutes later we reach the entrance and daylight. Our trip lasted 24 hours.

It’s January 18, 1985, and we trained even harder for this trip. Working out and learning from what hurt us on the first Binkleys trip, Ron and I did lots of body weight exercises to help us prepare for the endurance necessary to take on the 2-mile Hike area, or so we think.

Joining us is Henry Gilsdorf, Dewayne Combs, and Hubert Shen. Armed with rope, belay gear, harness, and lots of positive energy we head in and the stage is set for an epic trip. This is the first time I met Henry Gilsdorf. Henry sleeps a lot but he always wakes up fast and he is a powerful caver. We carry large dynamic rope and other equipment. We retrace familiar ground on the circle route and get to the entrance of the 2-mile Hike area after about 4 hours.

Gymnasting our way through the 2-mile Hike, the hundreds of dips and pushups pay off as this is a long, dry, keyhole-shaped canyon. It takes us several hours to reach the end. Any coldness from the Binkleys River has gone as we begin to overheat in the wool garments that surround our body armor.

Prior to reaching the back of this passage we encounter Figgly Didn’t Crawl. I had read about it in the Binkleys report. It was a showstopper of sort for a lot of cavers including, Dick Fig. We are determined to get through it and push to the end. The rope we are carrying gets lots of mud on it and we pick up significant weight from this passage.

We reach the known end area of the cave and before we begin we check out the Great Falls Passage. This is a complicated place with lots of different passages going different directions. The area needs a precision survey and concentrated exploration effort.

The Great Falls disappoints and does not have much water going down it. It is also a tight squeeze making it difficult to crawl into. We reach what we think is the Great Pit. It has a very muddy slope

traverse. Henry wakes up and volunteers to do the climb. He puts on a climbing harness and so does Hubert. Hubert unravels the muddy rope and Henry goes for it without waiting for Hubert to belay. Watching Henry’s traverse was amazing. He avoided having to go down and back up the other side by clawing his way across a very muddy traverse. Hubert finally gets ready to belay and Henry is now disconnecting the rope and preparing to scoop Formation Falls

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booty. Ron and I could not stop laughing.Henry is gone for what seems like an eternity.

He comes back out of breath and says he crawled 400 feet and where he stopped it kept going. With fire in his eyes he tells us the crawlway had strong wind and he had to crawl through some water. Henry’s scoop is the first time in my life that I had been a part of virgin cave discovery. My lips are wet and I can feel the full pull and force of virgin cave. It is the ultimate cave drug and is like an instant addiction. I recall looking at the map and realizing the potential. This area remains one of the better leads in the cave. With renewed energy we begin the long journey out.

Henry continues to sleep every time we break. I am feeling strong and revved up so much so that I venture solo down the Living Room Passage and pushed it to the point I thought was the end on the map. The others are waiting as I explore. I stop with a strong breeze making small waves in the water. I stop, lying submerged in the water, in a flat-out, low belly crawl. It was an ear dunker or maybe an eye dunker but one thing for sure, it keeps going and I could see that up ahead it opened back up. This is another good lead.

This time we are smarter and we avoid the deadly Fatigue Way and retrace our route in the reverse direction. Our time in the cave is now nearing 24 hours. Air movement through the cave is stronger than on the way in and unbeknownst to us record breaking temperatures outside had

dropped to 26° below zero. The air gets stronger the closer we get to the entrance. At the mountain room the strong eerie wind panics me so I shift and solo out by making the jump to light speed. I leave the others behind. A controlled sort of panic.

As I crawl and make my up to through the breakdown huge rocks stick to my clothes and gloves and the first time it happens I laugh at how silly this is. The second time it happens half of my glove sticks to a large rock and I wonder if skin would also stick to the rock. I progress into a nightmare as every rock I crawl on or touch sticks and soon I have as much as 30 or 40 pounds of rocks clinging to me. The unstable nature of the entrance adds to my nightmare.

When I come out I am greeted with a complete change of clothes. I have everything except my socks. No socks, ugh!

This is a big problem. I wring out my socks then put on dry boots. There is about 4 to 6 inches of snow on the ground and at -26° my feet immediately drift into the early stages of frostbite.

When I reach my car the doors are frozen and I can barely get in. I turn the key and nada. My mind wanders and panic sets in. At this moment a farmer drives by and asks if I need help. Self preservation kicks in and I abandon my caving friends and take up his offer. The farmer takes me to his house where his wife is fixing a large country dinner. She keeps commenting to her husband that I sure am hungry. What was the name of the cave you were exploring? she asks. My response is scattered, I am not sure of the name. She asks if I want another bowl of soup. Sure.

Henry and company come out about one hour later and Henry is an old farm boy from Kansas and his car battery has something like 5,000 cold cranking amps and so his vehicle starts right up. They go home not sure what had happened to me.

So, with virgin cave under our belts Ron and I look for more Harrison-Crawford booty and adventure.

Delusions of Grandeur … Dewey Eckhart Pit

According to the Binkleys report one of the best hopes for miles of virgin cave was sleeping

inside a small pit that was within sight of Harvey Binkley’s farm. Dewey Eckhart Pit is located in the projected upstream end of Binkleys Cave. Many of ISS trips had focused on blasting in hopes of find the upstream end of Binkleys River Passage. The other prospect for this was in the entrance where extreme freezing and thawing creates a nightmare of instabilility. Some of the entrance digs involved

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shock when the cavers would return to only find their dug passage had collapsed.

Dewey Eckhart Pit promised a safe bypass to this unstable nightmare so with the mind running wild people predicted Dewey Eckhart Pit would become a new entrance that would lead to miles of upstream passages.

It’s October 26, 1986. I stop and chat with the owner. The owner has two lovely daughters, twins with blond hair and blue eyes. They were both seniors in high school or first year college students. They were flirty and their father did not mind or was used to it.

The owner was supportive of cavers and he got excited when I asked him to show me the entrance. He said years ago cavers had blasted trying to connect it to a bigger system, Binkleys. The owner granted permission and said we could even stay in his garage/field house and use it as a base. Walking around, I could see the large sinkhole entrance called Harvey Binkleys Entrance.

Ron Adams, Tom Bertilicini, Tom Nugent, and I entered the cave the day after my 26th birthday. Tom noticed a small passage continuing above and past the pit. He could not move the wedged rocks so I came forward and removed them by dropping them to the floor. My work was proving out that it was virgin. It also had air. We all pushed ahead following

Tom until it got too tight for us. Tom pushed ahead and stopped at another pit that was different than the main pit of the cave. We could now feel air coming down this passage and I fantasized that this was the main source of the air ISS cavers had tried to follow. The rigging looked tricky as it would have to go back to the entrance or surface and the narrow crack may swing the caver into a small crack. In 1986 we wrote in the CIG cave log that all of us had discovered 400 feet of virgin cave. As with any virgin cave discovery I expect we exaggerated and it may have only been 100 feet or less but never the less it was virgin and it did have air.

Turns out we never went back and checked out the pit Tom Nugent had pushed into. Enlarging the passage to make it big enough for Ron and me looked long term and difficult.

There is another … Blowing Hole

Study the area around Binkleys and you find a 2-mile-long cave called Blowing Hole. The

Binkley Report has a crude map of this cave, some descriptions, and a geographic overlay. The report speculates the cave connects to Binkleys or it yields a parallel virgin cave.

The Dog had told me a horror story about Blowing Hole. He said this cave floods to the ceiling and so when I first heard this my mind drifts from his story to the Showfarm Cave accident in Lost River area. Explorers lost their lives there to a weather system that dumped rain in large quantities. They were experienced cavers also.

I drift back to Terry’s story, he has a bit of glow and excitement in his eyes. He says Blowing Cave moves tremendous air, so much so, that it blows leaves 200 feet away from the entrance. It is a real blowing hole he says. He continues, the cave blows stronger at the back of the cave than it does at the entrance. This air thing is the lure and bait. Where is this air coming from? Not sure, he says. I take the bait.

Terry warns this is a super dangerous flooder cave and do not underestimate this. He said to only do exploration in the dead of winter. The cave sucks a strong draft in the winter though and the first several hundred feet of the entrance crawlway freezes over. He said the ice is fun to navigate because you do it like a seal and slide over the ice and then it is quite a jolt when you break through into deep water.

Terry says one trip, I believe it was his last trip to this cave, they took a young Corydon boy with them. Their goal was the end of the cave. On his particular trip they went to the back and near

Rock Island Road moves big air from somewhere to the south toward Blowing Hole. Photo by Dave Everton.

Page 144 Central Indiana Grotto September 2009

the end they heard a loud rumble noise off in the distance. This noise triggers a panic as they thought it might be raining outside. So they exit the cave at a frantic pace. At the entrance to their surprise they came out to clear skies.

The loud water noise at the end was a mystery. The next day the young Corydon boy died. Terry said it was quite a shake up as the cause of death could logically be linked to the cave trip he went on the day before. I don’t recall any other details but this left quite an impression. I am sure if this death happened in today’s litigious world it would be a different outcome. Terry went on to explain that the end of the Blowing Hole Cave comes close to one area in Binkleys. The area discovered by Bloomington Indiana Grotto cavers, aka Randy Jackson and others.

He said the loud sound of water at the end is exciting and terrifying. He said one caver had reported to him that Dave Black had made his way to the source of the sound and it was a waterfall that they were unable to climb.

On March 13, 1986, Ron Adams and I make a reconnaissance trip to Blowing Hole with Tom Nugent and Tom Bertolicini. Mr. Bickel owned the property or at least controlled access to the cave. I recall driving down a dead-end road and seeing some nasty old mobile homes and an old farm house. Mr. Bickel was extremely overweight. He also owned the collapsed BIG Discovery Entrance to Binkleys Cave. He let us go check that out and it looked dangerous but almost enterable. The remains of an old culvert could be seen and the St. Louis Limestone, notorious for instability, was fractured all around the entrance due to the large volume of air coming in and out and freezing and thawing. The entrance is in dramatic bluffs because the twisting and winding flows of the Indian Creek makes one side’s perimeter dramatic limestone bluffs 30 to 50 feet tall.

On January 31, 1987, Ron Adams and I return to Blowing Hole complete with rubber intertubes and Ikelite diving lights. Too poor or ignorant about wetsuits, we put on our wool garments. We made it to the end of the cave and saw several nice side leads toward the end that were not mentioned in the report. At the end of our exploration we could hear the sound of a waterfall off in the distance, just as Terry had explained. The more we stood silently listening the louder the sound is getting. The way on didn’t look promising and the sound of the waterfall is increasing. Seconds are like minutes and minutes an hour so in a few minutes the sound of the water appears to be deafening and we think

perhaps the water is rising. So we head out at light speed and reach the entrance exhausted. We’re greeted to clear blue skies. The panic created an imaginary flood complete with wild thoughts and hallucinations. Déjà vu!

1989 to 2001 (The good, the bad, and the ugly)

I always say good comes from bad. I lost a dear friend, Chris Yeager, in 1989. It was his tragic

death and ultimate body recovery that brought together on of the most hard core group of cavers to ever explore Indiana caves. Most of us were from Indiana and one special one was from Ohio. So the bad brought together a good thing and for the next 13 years this group was led by Danny O. Dible. Under Danny’s drive and direction, this group would explore over 10 miles of virgin cave in Indiana, TAG, and Mexico. Five miles of booty was uncovered in Indiana alone and another 5 miles in Kentucky’s Fisher Ridge Cave System.

Danny’s team was made up of hard charging cavers, Ted Wilson, Tony and Marion Akers, Glenn LeMasters, Dave Black, Holly Cook, Greg and Valerie McNamara, Ron Adams, Tina Shirk, George Cesnik, and Kevin Bruno. I am proud to have been on this team. Together this team forever changed the ways and techniques of cave exploration in Indiana.

This group could do any cave anywhere in the world. Its only major weaknesses were publishing and the inherent tension that goes on inside all strong personality groups. Perhaps in a future article I or someone else from this group will write the stories and exciting tales of the Dible years. Stories like the Wyandotte Ridge Exploration Group, or, perhaps the tale of six different month-long expeditions to Oaxaca, Mexico, and the Cerro Ocote region.

As I reflect back, I see how reckless I was when I first started caving. As for Binkleys I see that it provided me a solid foundation and many transferable skills that I have relied on and refined for over 25 years. I still use most of them today.

Binkleys was the first cave to teach me what it means to move through a cave. And it was here that Ron and I transformed the drunken style of kung fu to an exotic staggering, skating, and stumbling caving technique that could safely and efficiently move across slippery/muddy breakdown passages like those in Fisher Ridge, Mexico’s Purificacion, Binkleys Fatigue Way, and those breakdown chambers 1,000 meters deep in Cueva Cheve.

Every time I go into the mountains or explore

September 2009 Central Indiana Grotto Page 145

Minutes of the CIG Regular Meeting August 5, 2009

The July meeting of the Central Indiana Grotto began with attendees introducing themselves and talking about recent caving they have done. Chairman Ron Adams welcomed everyone and Vice Chairman Bob Vandeventer reviewed the membership requirements. The attendance sheet

and SpeleoLog were passed around. Susie Strickland passed around the Cave Capers registration sign up sheet after making a plea for volunteers to help. Brenda Shultheis gave a report on the most recent Houghton Hole cleanup trip. August 22, the weekend after Cave Capers, will be the last trash

one of the world’s deep caves I pay homage to Ron Adams and Binkleys Cave. It was there and during those times that I learned about the will to live and how drive can help you survive and/or participate in world class cave exploration expeditions. Going super deep and into remote multi-mile caves transcends the physical and is mostly mental. The will to act is a powerful ally.

And like a gorgeous island siren Binkleys exploration magnet remains as vibrant, strong, loud, and seductive today as it did 29 years ago. And its sirens led to a spark and the spark lit my torch

and my torch caught wind and started a bonfire of passion of exploration that burns as strongly today as it did back then.

And there is a sinkhole-plane cave in southern Indian that goes and goes and goes and goes and even today no one has ever gotten to the end.

Oh yea, and Blenz’s list of caves: I never did go to all of them. Guess I never will become a caver.

I am haunted by lost friendships and countless unpublished discoveries of virgin cave all of which are historic and of epic proportions. Ω