Cave Dwelling

What can I say.  Those who know the character that is Levente Pinter understand the craziness that inevitably follows when he is around. 

Lev had planned on driving down to the Red at the same time as Marshal and I at the beginning of October.  Delayed by some of his odd jobs, he finally showed up this past weekend.  His main objective this time around was to get a bunch of stuff that he brought down from Calgary in to his “storage location”.  A couple years ago, Lev bought some property in the Red River Gorge.  Most of the property in the area either backs up on to a cliff, or is on top of one.  His piece of property is the exception and has land above and below a cliff band.   Near one end of the cliff approximately 15 meters from the ground is a cave that is well protected by a 5-meter overhang.  Most people would ignore the cave and focus their attention on the other tracts of land.  Lev is not most people.

After climbing a couple routes Monday morning Marshal decided that, as a measure of injury prevention, he was going to take a couple days off.  On Tuesday, while I left for the crag with Kevin, Ally and Laurence (friends form camp), Marshal stayed behind to chill at camp and avoid the temptation that cliff-side rest days provide.  The typical cloudless warm weather let way for wind and thunder clouds around three o’clock.  The climbers who stayed at the cliff huddled under their climbs to avoid the rain, and moved apprehensively up the rock as with upward movement came more rain.  

Upon returning to camp at 5:30, I expected to find Marshal sheltered in the van watching an episode or two of HBO’s the Wire (fantastic show by the way), but he was no where to be found.  An hour passed, and hunger pangs were grabbing my attention.  I figured that Marshal had most likely hooked up with Adam and Karen (who were also on a rest day) and had gone into town for dinner.   Quick and easy, I ate some ramen spiced up with whatever I could scrounge from the numerous half empty condiment containers that liter our picnic table and a couple eggs for protein.  Sheltered in the van, eating my ramen, I see Adam’s truck pull into his campsite.  No Marshal. 

It’s 8 o’clock when Lev’s rusty tercel pulls into the campsite and a soaked, scraped and dazed Marshal stumbles out of the car.  Horrible spiky green vines have eaten Marshal’s leg.  Marshal and Lev had spent the last useable hours of daylight hauling Lev’s junk through overgrown Kentucky jungle from his car to a staging area just above the cliff.  I was informed that we are going to drop the odds and ends over the precipice in to Lev’s cave the following morning.  What better way to get to know these here hills?  We agree to meet up at 10. 

Marshal's leg

Marshal and I show up at quarter to 11, and predictably Lev is almost ready to go.   We harness up and bushwhack down to a tarp that is covering the stuff.  My first thought upon seeing the collecting of seemingly random building supplies is “How the hell did Lev manage to get all this stuff in his Tercel?”  Before me is a cast iron wood burning stove including 30 feet of insulated chimney, a large bundle of shed siding materials, 2-no joking-TWO kitchen sinks (with adequate copper pipes of course), a thule full of stereo equipment, a basketball hoop, and a fluorescent light.

The plan is to get Lev down in to the cave to pull the materials in while Marshal and I bundle up each item and send them down.  The first bundle gets down with no problems.  Encouraged by our progress we quickly tie up 3 sections of chimney and send them into the abyss. 

“Stop, Stop, Stop!” we hear form below.

Slack in our tie-job has left the bundle hanging several feet below the lip of the cave.  The heavy sections of chimney are giving Lev quite a bit of trouble as they hang out in space.

“ARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!” Lev lets out a torturous scream as he tries to haul the bundle up onto the ledge.

Marshal and I are beside ourselves laughing at the thought of Lev below and the unique predicament that three of us have gotten ourselves into.  Each groan we hear only adds to the hilarity of the situation.  5 minutes later, with swollen vocal chords and sore muscles Lev wrangles the bundle into his cave.  On the rest of the lowers, we ensure that all the slack in the system is accounted for to avoid another fiasco.

With the junk in place on the shelf, the three of us drive down the hill to gain the lower access trail to Lev’s property.  The quality of the road quickly deteriorates as we cross Lev’s property line.  Years of inoccupation have deepened potholes and left serious gaps on the cliff-side road.  We ditch the cars and start hiking towards the rope we intend to ascend into the cave.  We all ponder whether or not the road is passable.  Lev wants to store his car at the base of cliff as he is flying back to Calgary the following day.

The base of the cliff is a short five minutes from the cars and before we know it we are in the cave admiring our handy-work.  The roof is quite a bit bigger than I anticipated.  I can’t believe that we managed to get all that crap on to a ledge in the middle of nowhere.  The kicker is that Lev is planning to build a little living space for himself on the cliff.  The stove is staying in place, and the 30 feet of chimney will allow the smoke to clear the top of the cliff band.   We hang out for a while and imagine all the possibilities:  Zip-line access, bolt-on balcony, free hanging hammocks, in cliff tube slide decent, so many ways this abode could go.  What climber wouldn’t want to live on a cliff?

View from below the cave

Marshal Jumaring up to the shelf

View from the cave

Back at the cars, Lev is set on attempting the sketchiest section of road.  Slick sandstone on one side and a deep trench on the other separated by what could be a width of road equivalent to the Tercel wheelbase.  Slowly the car creeps forward, Marshal is behind and I’m in front directing Lev past the seemingly impassable road.  Midway through Lev can no longer see road and decides to gun it!  His strategy works, and miraculously the Tercel is unscathed.  Whoo Hooo, it got across!  Now what?  How is he planning on getting it back out?  A slightly larger patch of road ahead daunts the potential for a U-turn.  After a half assed attempt at a 100-point turn, the idea is scraped.  The only option is to back-up across the same disheveled piece of overgrown trail.  With us as his eyes from behind, Lev moves cautiously towards the pinch-point.  Through some bit of insane luck he makes it through a second time.  We are out of the woods.  After a few laughs we climb a few easy pitches at the Solar Collector crag.  We finish the day off with some of the famous Miguel’s pizza. 

The road

What a day.

AQ