a personal story by David Locklear, dlocklea...@gmail.com Bare with me here please. It is a beautiful day, and I am stuck in horrendous traffic driving with the Sun in my face, with my mind wandering to a more pleasant memory.
A quarter of a century ago, I was having preliminary discussions with my caving colleagues in Houston about planning a real grotto caving trip - something that had rarely been successfully pulled off. I suggested a trip to Las Grutas del Precipicio and convinced them that we could do it. In those days, nearly every caver in Houston did not have a computer in the house nor easy access to one ( except maybe at work ). Email / Internet had not yet reached Houston caving. Communication was done via landline phones ( we just called them "phones." ) None of had answering machines nor used beepers ( pagers ). I am writing this from a very fuzzy memory, but there is a trip report in SpeleoSpace. I think the trip occurred over Thanksgiving 1991 ( maybe 1990 ). Charles Fromen offered to drive us to Bustamante Canyon in his old 1977 ( ? ) supercab Dodge Powerwagon. His young son, Carl Phillip Fromen, was with us. He about 12 years old. Also Kenny and Carol McGee were there ( probably newlyweds ?? ). I think I was semi-homeless at the time, and caver Bill Rupley had offered me an inexpensive room in his fancy condo. I was most likely working as a contract draftsman using Microstation CAD for a temp agency. I had not yet made many modifications to the SpeleoStationwagon. In those days, the only bridge across the Rio Grande ( to Bustamante ) was in Laredo and there was no gas near Bustamante. I think our trip was uneventful. Carl Phillip Fromen used an Inchworm system for the ascent of the 2 pits. ( I still have his Inchworm rig that his dad built ) We probably used PMI rope, but maybe Bluewater ? Charles probably jumared out on a Texas system, and Kenny and Carol probably used Ropewalkers without any pulleys. I most likely had a system I made up combining a Mitchell System with a Gibbs at the foot instead of a lower Jumar. We did not know anybody that liked the Frog, and most cavers I knew ridiculed it. Charles was in excellent physical shape and his son showed a promising future as an award winning rope-climber. We probably just took a quick dip in the creek after the visit to the cave, as the canyon was still destroyed by Hurricane Gilbert ( from 1988.) We also might have swam at the spring in Lampazos ( a place that was a whole lot better back then ). I can't remember if we slept in the cave. I can't remember if we ate at the Hotel Ancira, but we most likely did. I just know we did not have aerial-video making drones, or cell phones or LED headlamps or digital cameras or Google Earth, and the truck most likely had a carburetor. And we survived !! I think we did spend an hour looking for caves on the North ( west ) ridge of the canyon, before heading home. If you see the participants at TCR, try to see if they remember the trip. I attempted this trip 6 times, and only twice did I make it to the big formations at the back room. All the memories are blended and fuzzy with forgotten names. David Locklear NSS # 27639
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