---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Frank Binney <fr...@frankbinney.com> List-Post: texascavers@texascavers.com Date: Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 10:23 AM Subject: ICS Amazing Backpack Stories To: Charles Goldsmith <wo...@justfamily.org>, Texas Cavers <texascavers@texascavers.com>
On 7/29/09 8:46 PM, "Charles Goldsmith" <wo...@justfamily.org> wrote: > So Frank, what's this I hear about you and your extra big backpack? > Actually I had two amazing backpack experiences at ICS: 1) Back in the early 1970s I visited a multiple entrance cave in the Grand Canyon. Technical climbing was required to reach the entrances, and wetsuits were required to negotiate the stream passage deeper inside the cave (which, by the way, had been mapped by Rune and other Texas cavers back in the 1960s). We entered by way of a dry upper entrance, where I stashed the brand-new expensive backpack I had used to transport the wetsuits, rope and climbing gear. Twelve hours later, exhausted from pushing tight leads deep in the cave, we decided to save time by rappelling down to the Colorado River by way of a lower, wet entrance. As dawn light began to illuminate the Grand Canyon, we pushed off down stream in our oar raft and it was shortly thereafter I realized my expensive new backpack remained in that upper entrance. Over the next 35 years, especially when I passed below those cave entrances on numerous Grand Canyon raft trips, I wondered what might have happened to that pack. So imagine my surprise at the ICS banquet when Bob and Debbie Buecher came over and asked if I was missing a backpack. A few years ago Bob was at that particular entrance and noticed a dusty pack stashed on a ledge. He's got it at his home in Tucson and plans to reunite me with it. 2) My other ICS amazing backpack story concerns the charity of my good "friend" Bill Steele. One day I loaded up my backpack with heavy books I planned to mail home (ICS proceedings, Derek Ford's Castleguard book, Bill's Huautla book, a coffee table-sized French caving diving book, the Vertical Bill Cuddington bio, etc.) Unfortunately, the campus mail center was closed when I arrived but Bill Steele graciously allowed me to stash the pack in his truck while he, Diana and I attended the photo salon. Later that night he was kind enough to hand deliver the pack to me in Groad Hollow. As I schlepped the pack across campus to my apartment, I remember thinking how smart I was to be mailing those books home--they weighed a ton and never would have passed airline weight limits. The never morning I struggled to get the heavy pack on my back and made the long walk the length of the campus from the Pecan Grove apartments to the registration building coffee shop. The mail center wasn't open so I carried the pack around most of the day, criss-crossing the campus numerous times for various sessions. Finally I made it to the mail center with the backpack, where upon transferring the contents into Priority Mail cartons I discovered a quite large, beautifully stream-sculpted, authentic Texas karst rock in the bottom of the pack. What a thoughtful gift--Thanks, Bill!
