Bryan "Crow" Crowell
Matt Bornais
Jim Bowers
Rob Martin

Kooken cave has it's reputation, yeah... it's been called Pennsylvania's hardest cave. And I've got to admit it's a tough one. The so called tourist route involves a few rappells, ladder crossings, jumping over water filled pits, and other assorted nasties, before you climb 160+ feet up a muddy, icky slope. After you've gone caving there, you're muddy and usually bruised... but happy to have seen a pretty nice cave.

We go in the back entrance, down a long slope, and then through a series of upward trending chimneys, with sharp flanges, and lot's of sort of tight places. After a few hundred feet of this fun you end up at a climb, which leads to a foot high window... where you've got to rig into a rappell line. Then through some nice passage to the next rappell, a 45 foot affair, with a nice rebelay in it. At the bottom of this there's a few mud slopes, and then a water crossing. Some more trunk passage leads to the dome pit complex, and access to that is through a series of tight winding climbs.

From there, no one knew... it could go. Yeah, the old cavers ploy to get newbies into the sport... "it might go". Well, it worked, and I was able to convince Jim Bowers, a well respected rock climber (puts up routes in the 5.12+ range) and sometime caver to come along. "There's this climb at the back of the cave that might go Jim... it's overhangy and a bit loose, but it might go."

He came along... and about halfway to the climb we pause to rest a bit, carrying drills, climbing gear, bolts, ropes, 24 volt batteries has made our packs 40 pounds, and lugging them through the cave just isn't all that fun. He looks at me and asks "Is there much more of that ahead?" Of course I smile and say, "well, the cave takes on a different character now..." Note... I didn't say it was easier.

We finish the cave and end up at the climb, rather happy to drop the packs for a moment. At this point Jim gets his first look at the wall he is to ascend. He's pretty quiet for a moment, and then comments that there isn't any really good rock to be found. We pull out the gear and start up, he places a bolt pretty shortly and all seems to be moving well. But each time he moves up he encounters more loose rock and mud. As the belayer I'm not too worried until I hear him whisper "shit". Each time that happens I take up slack. As he gets higher he finds that he's drilling into rock layers that are only 4 inches thick... will the bolts hold a fall?

Jim climbs on and on, with each move he's hoping to find something solid. Down on the ground I hear him laugh when he swings the hammer into the wall, but I don't hear a hammer thud. Apparently there's a few inches of mud to scrape off before he hits rock. Jim comments that he wishes he'd have brought an ice axe. Finally he finds a place to put in a 3/8" bolt, something that might actually hold a fall. The moves above there just get crazier and crazier, mixing free moves with aid, and generally hoping the entire dome isn't going to collapse.

He tops out, and is pretty fried.. rating the climb an A-3 or A-4. I second the route and must agree with him. The climbing was done entirely on rotten rock, scraping mud from the overhanging route to place the bolts. His free moves were pretty scary too. I top out my ascent and shake his hand. "Man.. you've got some balls Jim" "Nah, I'm just really stupid"

At the top I start to explore some side passage, find it choked with boulders, so I start into a shallow crawl. It starts at about 10" tall, and about 15 feet in is about 7.5" tall. Of course I can't proceed until I clear out some cobbles, so I back up and start to move some little rocks. I back up again, move the little rocks, when I hear a thump, and feel weight settle onto my legs. "Hey Jim, how big is that rock that just fell on my legs?" " It's pretty big Rob, let me get a look at it." "Rob, I don't want to scare you, but that's a REALLY big rock....Crow get up here!"

Now I'm not too scared, I'm trapped in the cave, but I've got a little muddy puddle in front of my face, and I can feel lot's of air moving... there's gotta be big passage ahead of me. Jim messes around with the rock, and it settles completely onto my legs, now I'm in a bit of pain, but shortly he muscles it off of me, and then they move it out of the opening to the crawl. A few seconds later and I'm standing again. Trapped for a few minutes, but still not wanting to repeat the experience.

Next, Crow gets his shot of adrenaline by sending a large rock off of the cliff towards our gear, of course he's hanging on rope when he's doing this... gotta make life interesting somehow! We decide that these passages should be explored by smaller folks than us... and make our way out of the cave. At one point, I (rob) find out why those big black boots aren't favored for vertical caving, as my boot chocks into a crack as I'm decending, and I'm forced to work about 10 minutes to free it.

Anyway, we're out of the cave, Jim said he'd actually be willing to go back to Kooken "Once some time passes and I forget how bad it was". I don't think I'll go back, but am having dreams about the airflow in that little crawl. But if you're interested in an adventure, jsut remember... with all that airflow... it just might go.

By the way.... the climb will be "Jim's DBA" on the map (DBA = Death By Adrenaline) and if I'm nice to Crow that crawl might become the "Rob Collins Crawl"

Gee, ain't exploring fun?