Rogers Belmont - 7/13/2024
Chris Meyle Reporting
On Saturday July 13th, myself, Harriet, Murphy, Josh, Scott, and Ed all got a chance to go into Roger's Belmont. This is exciting as we were the first "tourist trip" in to this cave. Access has been granted previously but these seem to be for research/survey purposes.
The first of us entered at 11:07 by going down a ladder climb in a culvert pipe. The climb down was around 30ft and led to a small passage where you wait to descend a little 12-15ft rope. Once down, you shimmy over a few feet and attach to the rope for the main drop which is around 30ft and mostly free hanging.
Once down, we waited patiently for everyone else and then began our journey. With no ending spot in mind, we meandered through muddy crawls and large walking passage, slowly working our way to the furthest points of the cave. As we moved, some areas became a little technical only amplified by slippery mud. The cave slowly began showing us beautiful formations that were a bit dried up, but with a good imagination, you could envision how incredible it would look if we weren't experiencing such a drought. Nonetheless, this cave gave you quite a lot to look at.
Eventually we made it to a large underground lake that was crystal clear. The view of the lake was a little cramped so as each of us took a look, Scott took some time to set a bolt for a handline to our next passageway, "the dead bat crawl." This was a fun army crawl for what felt like a few hundred feet. Eventually taking us closer to the back of the cave.
The geology of the cave begins to change soon after and Josh did an awesome job explaining this as we moved along. It was distinctly different as most areas involved climbing over or through larger breakdown boulders.
We soon made it to an ending point, examining a past dig which led to more cave. It got tighter and most of us began feeling a little exhausted, so we began our trip back. It took us about an hour and the movement kept us warm for our trip up rope.
Most of us had not done this cave before so we assumed the ascent would be a little easier, but it was a little trickier than imagined. As exhausting as it was to navigate the ropes up, it felt good to be at the bottom of that ladder climb and looking up at warm, sunny skies. We all slowly made our way through every stage and to the top. We gathered our muddy gear and met up at a Thai restaurant to finish out the trip.
This trip was awesome, and we all feel very grateful to be given permission for the first tourist trip into the cave. Such a good experience that offered a good challenge to anyone looking to have a full cave experience (vertical, tight, large walking passage, etc).
